/- 


MCCLELLAFS  MILITARY  CAREER 


REVIEWED   AND   EXPOSED: 


THE 


MILITARY  POLICY  OF  THE  ADMINISTRATION 

*  * 

SET  FOKTH  AND  VINDICATED. 


Published  by  the   Union   Congressional   Committee. 


WASHINGTON": 

PRINTED  BY  LEMUEL  TOWERS. 
1864. 


9  >. Tl  ffl     a4s  ; 


. 


•O'IX'3-  OH  A 


The  following  Chapters  are  a  condensation  arid  revision  of 'the  series  of 
twelve  articles  in  review  of  McClelland  Report,  by  W^IAM  S.WIWTOI?, 
published  in  the  New  York  Times,  during  the  months  of  t^bruary,  March, 
and  Apiil,  1864.  In  the  p  eparation  of  this  criticism  the  author  has  to 
acknowledge  the  use  of  a  large  mass  of  unpublished  official  documents. 


CONTENTS 


I.     McGlellan  as  a  Political  Strategist. 8 

II.     The  "  Young  Napoleon  " 4 

III.  A  Hundred  and  Fifty  Thousand  Men  "  in  Buckram  " : 6 

IV.  The  Modern  Fabius  and  his  False  Pretences 8 

V.     "My  Plan  and  Your  Plan/' , 9 

YI.     MeClellan's  Grievance — the  Detuchm^ht  of  McDowell's  Corps 1J* 

VII.     "A  Pickaxe  and  a  Spade,  a  Spade.",. , 16 

7IIL     The  Peninsular  Campaign , 18 

IX.     How  Pope  got  out  of  his  Scrape 2d 

X.     Closing  Sc«n«s  in  McClellan's  Career , 2* 


.noinU   erfl  vd 


'•i.  <a,v  ' 


FCLELLAN'S  MILITARY  CAREER 

REVIEWED  AND  EXPOSED. 


"••^•K        L 

MoOLEELAN  AS  A  POLITICAL  STRATEGIST, 

It  is  a  fact  singularly  characteristic  of  General  McClellan  that  having  won  what 
ever  reputation  he  enjoys  in  the  field  of  war,  he  is  now  running  on  this  reputation 
as  the  Presidential  candidate  of  a  party  whose  creed  is  peace  and  whose  platform 
casts  contumely  on  the  very  war  of  which  their  nominee  had  for  upwards  of  a  year 
the  chief  conduct.  When  we  consider,  however,  that  all  his  fame  is  founded  on 
defeats,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  his  hopes  should  still  be  bound  up  in  defeats.  Gen 
eral  McClellan's  Presidental  prospects  brighten  just  in  proportion  as  our  soldiers 
suffer  disaster,  and  he  will  only  be  certain  of  being  President  of  our  country  when 
it  is  certain  we  have  no  country  at  all. 

There  is  no  object  more  calculated  to  claim  the  sympathy  of  a  generous  people 
than  a  defeated  general;  and  unless  his  failure  has  been  associated  with  circum 
stances  of  personal  turpitude  he  is  pretty  sure,  sooner  or  later,  to  receive  that  sym 
pathy.  Machiavelli,  that  subtle  observer,  points  out  that  the  Romans  never  blamed 
their  unsuccessful  commanders,  esteeming  that  to  a  high-minded  man  the  mortifica 
tion  of  defeat  was  of  itself  punishment  enough.  Sertorius,  Mithridates  and  Wil 
liam  of  Orange  were  habitually  unsuccessful  generals,  and  yet  history  has  not  chosen 
to  cast  contumely  o»n  their  names :  on  the  contrary,  the  memory  of  their  failure^  ie 
covered  up  by  the  remembrance  of  qualities  of  mind  that  deserved,  if  they  could  not 
command,  success. 

It  has  been  left  for  General  McClellan,  however,  to  claim  net  merely  the  sympa 
thy  of  his  countrymen  (which  would  have  been  accorded  him  had  his  conduct  been  . 
marked  by  the  modesty  of  a  soldier)  but  their  admiration  and  highest  re  wards  for  a 
series  of  exploits  in  which  the  country  suffered  only  disaster. 

General  McClellan's  candidacy  for  the  Presidency  does  not  begin  with  the  nomi 
nation  at  Chicago.  While  his  soldiers  were  being  struck  down  by  thousands  with 
the  fevers  of  the  Chickahominy,  the  fever  of  the  White  House  struck  him.  There 
§re  a  thousand  thi'ngs  both  in  his  military  career  and  in  his  subsequent  conduct 
that  can  only  be  explained  on  this  theory.  No  doubt  he  would  have  been  glad  to 
have  founded  his  Presidential  pretensions  on  success  ;  but  as  this  was  not  possible 
he  early  conceived  a  characteristic  change  of  base  :  he  determined  to  found  them  on 
defeat.  He  could  not  make  failures  triumphs,  but  he  would  adventure  a  flanking 
movement  in  the  field  of  politics  more  bold  than  any  he  ever  essayed  on  the  field 
of  war :  he  would  throw  the  burden  of  all  his  failures  upon  an  Administration  which 
thwarted  all  his  brilliant  plans  and  ensured  defeat  where  he  had  organized  vic 
tory  !  This  desperate  enterprise  he  has  attempted  to  carry  though  in  a  document 
published  a  few  months  ago,  which,  under  the  guise  of  a  "Report,"  is  really  an 
•elaborate  political  manifesto. 

Had  General  MoClellan  not  beea  a  prospective  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  bring  his  so-called  "  Report"  into  any  known  category.  If  it 
is  less  than  a  Report  it  is  also  more  than  a  Report.  It  is  less  than  a  Report  because 
numerous  dispatches  of  the  time  are  omitted  from  this  collection.  It  is  also  more 
than  a  strictly  military  Report,  because  its  basis  is  *  n  elaborate  historical,  and 
argumentative  recital,  in  which  such  dispatches  as  are  sed  by  General  AlcGIeiia  , 
are  inlaid.  Military  Reports  in  the  sense  in  whicii  c'  >  aJ.dier  no  •ei-tun-is  '.ht 


M26278 


term,  are  written  either  from  the  battle-field  itself,  or,  in  the  impossibility  of  that, 
as  speedily  after  the  action  as  it  is  possible  for  the  staff  to  collect  the  requisite  data, 
There  have  been  Generals  who  have  seen  fit  at  the  close  of  their  career  to  publish 
their  dispatcher  in  collected  form.  Such  a  legacy  was  left  to  military  history  by 
the  greai,  Iron  Duke.  But  what  is  peculiar  in  Wellington's  publication  of  his  dis- 
pfttehes  is  that  he  has  left  these  memorials  of  his  career  in  their  strict  chronologi 
cal  order,  in  their  exact  original  state:  he  "has  not  suppressed  a  line,  nor  added  a 
word  of  commentary,  nor  a  word  of  argument,  nor  a  word  of  accusation,  nor  a  word 
of  justification. 

Not  eo  General  MeClellan's  Report  The  labor  of  a  whole  twelvemonth,  com 
posed -in  the  leisure  of  retiracy,  and  after  the  publication  of  most  of  the  material 
likely  to  bear  on  his  fame,  its  purpose  seems  Jess  to  record  a  series  of  military  trans 
actions  than  to  vindicate  his  conduct  and  arraign  the  Administration  No  charge 
is  too  great,  none,  i-oo.  small,  to  draw  out  from  him  a  replicationi^and  he  is  equal- 
Jy  read}7,  whether  to  bring  railing  accusations  against  his  milmfc*Ui8uperior8,  to 
bowl  down  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War,  or  to  blov.  *  *.he  news 
paper?.  : 

In  this  state  of  facts,  &  critical  analysis  of  this  so-called  "  Report  "  becomes  a  mat 
ter  which  concerns  the  welfare  of  the  country  not  less  than  the  truth  of  history.  It 
is  to  this  task  I  propose  addressing  myself.  It  will  be  our  duty  to  {/Tee  to  the  his 
torical  truth  underlying  the  veneer  which  General  McClellan  has  spread  over  events, 
to  endeavor  to  seize  by  the  guiding-clue  of  unpublished  dispatches  how  much  here 
set  down  as  original  motive  is  really  afterthought,  and  to  examine  the  foundation  of 
the  charges  which  he  heaps  upon  the  Administration,  if  I  do  not  succeed  in  prov 
ing  by  documentary  evidence  that  every  one  of  General  McClellari's  failures  was 
the  result  of  his  own  conduct  and  character, — if  I  do  not  prove  his  career  as  a 
whole  to  have  been  a  failure  unmatched  in  military  history,  and  if  I  do  not  fasten 
upon  him  conduct  which  in  any  other  country  in  the  world  would  have  caused 
him  to  be  court-martialed  and  dismissed  the  service, — I  shall  ask  the  reader  to  ac 
cept  his  plea  in  abatement  of  judgment  and  accord  him  the  patent  of  distinguished 
generalship.  But  if  I  make  good  all  I  have  said,  I  shall  ask  the  reader  to  charac 
terize  in  fitting  terms  the  conduct  of  a  man  who,  receiving  the  hearties t  support  of 
the  Government,  the  lavish  confidence  of  the  people,  and  the  unstinted  resources  of 
the  nation,  achieves  nothing  but  defeat,  and  terminates  a  career  of  unexampled  fail 
ure  by  charging  the  blame  upon  an  Administration  whose  only  fault  was  not  to  hare 
sooner  to  discovered  his  incapacity. 

II. 

THE  "  YOUNG  NAPOLEON." 

It  was  the  good  fortune  of  General  McClellan  to  come  into  command  while  the 
public  mind  was  in  a  peculiar  mood.  The  disastrous  upshot  of  a  forward  move 
ment  in  which  the  nation  was  conscious  of  having  used  too  great  urgency  had  given 
rise  to  complete  abnegation  of  all  criticism  on  the  part  of  the  people  and  the  pre««. 
Bull  Run  had  educated  us,  and,  in  a  fit  of  patriotic  remorse,  men  renounced  every 
thing  that  might  appear  like  pressure  on  the  Government  or  the  commanders  of  our 
armies. 

The  nation  did  more  :  it  literally  threw  open  its  arms  to  receive  the  young  chief 
thosen  to  lead  its  foremost  array.  He  came  in  with  no  cold  suspicion,  but  with  a 
warm  and  generous  welcome.  It  will  always  remain  one  of  the  must  extraordinary 
phenomena  of  our  extraordinary  times  that  a  young  man  without  military  experi 
ence,  leaping  from  a  captaincy  to  the  highest  grade  in  our  military  hierarchy,  and 
bringing  with  him  only  the  prestige  of  a  series  of  small  operations  which  another 
than  he  planned  and  executed,*  should  have  been  at  one  received  into  the  nation's 
confidence  and  credited  in  advance  with  every  military  quality  and  capacity.  It 
may  not  be  very  flattering  to  our  common  sense  to  look  back  at  the  time  when  thU 
bero  of  unfought  fields  was  taken  on  trust  as  a  "young  Napoleou  ;"  but  it  remains, 
nevertheless,  a  piece  of  history;  and  when  a  few  wteks  after  assuming  command, 
he  told  his  soldiers,  "  We  have  had  our  last  retreat,  we  ha?e  seen  OUR  last  defeat — 
you  stand  by  me  and  I'll  stand  by  you,"  a  too-confiding  people  applauded  the  bom 
bast  as  having  the  true  Napoleonic  ring  ! 

Beyond  a  donbt  these  things  showed  the  military  juvenility  of  America;  but  they 
were  none  the  less  the  manifestations  of  a  mood  of  mind  whicfi  an  abl*  Commander 

*I  mean  of  course  General  Rosecrans.  The  Report  of  that  general,  inoiudiug  his  operation*  in 
Western  Virginia,  will,  it  i«  hoped,  soon  b«  published. 


could  have  turned  to  immense  account.  General  McClellan  had  but  to  ask,  and  it 
was  given  him — indeed  it  came  without  asking.  Every  energy  of  the  Government, 
and  all  the  resources  of  a  generous  and  patriotic  people,  were  lavishly  placed  athia 
disposal,  to  enable  him  to  gather  together  an  army  and  put  it  in  the  most  complete 
state  of  efficiency,  so  that  offensive  movements  might  be  resumed  at  the  earliest 
possible  moment.  The  time  of  that  movement  was,  however,  with  a  scrupulous 
de)acacy  left  in  the  hands  of  the  Commander  himself.  General  McClellan  com 
plains  of  the  "  vehemence  with  which  an  immediate  advance  upon  the  enemy's 
works  directly  in  our  front  was  urged  by  a  patriotic  people."  I  am  very  sura 
that  not  only  was  no  "immediate  advance  "  urged,  but  that  no  advance  at  all  was 
expected  during  any  portion  of  the  period  in  which  General  McClellan  says  he  was 
engaged  in  organizing  the  army.  "  It  was  necessary,"  says  he,*  "  to  create  a  new 
army  for  acl.ive  operations  and  to  expedite  its  organization,  equipment,  and  the  ac 
cumulation  of  the  material  of  war,  and  to  this  not  inconsiderable  labor  all  my  ener 
gies  for  the  next  three  months  were  exerted."  As  General  McClellan  assumed  com 
mand  of  the  army  in  the  latter  part  of  July  (27th),  the  "  three  months"  spoken  of 
would  bring  us  to  the  1st  of  November.  Now  it  would  nwt  be  difficult  to  show  that 
during  no  part,  of  that  period  did  the  public  show  anything  like  "  vehemence  "  for 
an  advance.  The  country  understood  that  a  new  army  had  to  be  organized;  in 
deed  ther^  was  if  anything,  a  disposition  to  exaggerate  both  the  time  required  for 
this  work  and  its  inherent  difficulties;  and  as  a  large  share  of  the  fame  of  General 
McClellan  rests  on  the  theory  of  his  having  "  organized  "  the  army,  it  may  be  worth 
while  making  a  brief  diversion  to  penetrate  into  the  interior  of  this  awful  mystery 
of  organization. 

One  would  suppose  from  the  tone  of  General  McClellan  that  when  he  came  to  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  there  was  no  army  to  command.  "  I  found,"  says  he  (pag« 
44),  "no  army  to  command — a  mere  collection  of  regiments,  cowering  on  the  banks 
of  the  Potomac,  some  perfectly  raw,  others  dispirited  by  the  recent  defeat."  Now, 
the  facts  of  the  case  are  that  he  came  into  command  of  fifty  thousand  men,  and  they 
were  very  far  from  being  "a  mere  collection  of  regiments."  The  brigade  and  divi 
sional  organization  existed  and  had  existed,  having  been  established  by  General 
McDowell.  The  organization  of  modern  armies  is  a  matter  long  ago  fixed,  and  >« 
not  an  affair  which  admits  either  of  invention  or  of  innovation.  The  hierarchy  by 
the  battalion,  brigade,  division,  and  corps,  first  formulated  in  the  Ordonnance  du 
Roi,  is  the  military  system  of  every  European  nation ;  and  our  own  military  code  is, 
in  fact,  a  translation  of  it.  It  is  not  clear,  therefore,  how  there  was  room  for  the 
exercise  of  any  euch  mysterious  powers  of  organization  as  have  been  attributed  to 
General  McClellan,  and  he  certainly  put  forth  none.  He  found'  the  framework  of 
brigades  and  divisions,  and  he  continued  it,  simply  piling  up  more  brigades  and 
more  di visions. f  There  only  remained  to  push  the  organization  one  step  higher, 
and  that  step  he  did  not  take.  Our  regular  army  having  always  been  very  email, 
no  higher  unit  of  organization  than  the  division  had  existed  or  had  been  required. 
What  became  absolutely  necessary  as  soon  as  the  needs  of  the  war  created  great 
armies  of  one  or  two  hundred  thousand  men  was  to  establish  the  higher  fighting 
unit — the  corps  d"armee — without  which  no  large  army  can  effectively  enter  upon 
an  active  campaign.  General  McClellan  would  never  consent  to  the  establishment  Of 
corps.  The  only  novelty  of  organization,  therefore,  which  it  was  possible  for  him 
to  institute,  he  would  not  and  did  not.  He  left  the  army  an  acephalous  agglomer 
ation  of  thirteen  divisions,  without  correlation,  unity  or  cohesion;  and  it  became 
necessary  for  the  President,  months  afterwards,  and  ia  opposition  to  General  Mc 
Clellan,  to  constitute  corps  just  as  the  army  was  on  the  point  of  setting  out  on  an  a«- 
tive  campaign. 

The  period  of  three  months  during  which  General  McClellan,  according  to  his 
own  statement,  was  engaged  in  reorganizing  the  army,  having  passed, — the  Gov 
ernment  and  the  nation  became  naturally  anxious  that  the  splendid  army  of  over 
a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men,  which  had  by  this  time  grown  up  on  the  bank* 
of  the  Potomac,  should  be  turned  to  account  Our  foreign  relations,  our  domestic 
interests,  our  national  honor — every  consideration  conspired  to  urge  an  attack  on  th« 
insolent  foe  who  held  the  Capital  in  siege.  But  during  no  period  of  the  six  months 
succeeding  the  1st  of  November — and  during  all  of  which  period  the  motives  for  an 

*  Report,  p.  6. 

t  "Whatever  credit  is  claimed  for  the  practical  organization  of  th«  army  belongs  to  Brigadi**- 

Oeneral  mow  Major-General)  Silas  Oasey,  a  painstaking  tactician,  who  labored  with  tireless  a»- 

ftiduity  at  the  task  of  brigading  the  newly  arrived  regiments.    The  assumption  of  the  credit  01  thte 

wore  by  General  M«Cl«jllan  ia  a  flagrant  instance  of  »ic  voa  non 

T*  The  fcnight  Blew  the  boar, 

Tte  knight  had  the  gloire." 


sdVance  became  progressively  more  and  more  imperative — did  or  would  General 
McClellan  consent  to  move  his  army.  If  there  are  a,ny  considerations  that  go  to 
justify  this  delay,  it  is  only  fair  to  General  McOlellan  that  he  shall  have  the  benefit 
of  their  full  weight,  and  this  subject  is  worth  examining  with  some  fulness,  because 
there  is  a  close  logical  connexion  between  that  long  inaction  and  all  the  subsequent 
ill  fortune  of  the  Army  of  the  Po-tomac. 

IIL 

A  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY  THOUSAND  MEN  «'  IN  BUCKRAM." 

There  is  one  characteristic  of  General  McClellan  which  displays  itself  so  persist 
ently,  both  in  his  Report  and  in  his  conduct,  that  it  must  belong  to  the  very  struc 
ture  of  his  intellect.  What  I  mean  is  a  certain  inequality  of  vision  which  puts 
facts  out  of  all  just  relations,  gives  him  one  standard  of  judgment  for  himself  and 
another  for  others,  and  leads  him  to  a  prodigious  over-estimate  of  immediate,  and  a 
prodigious  under-estimate  of  remote  difficulties.  "  The  first  qualification  in  a  general,5"* 
says  JNapoleon,  "  is  a  cool  head — that  is,  a  head  which  receives  just  impressions,  and 
estimates  things  and  object*  at  their  real  value.  Some  men  are  so  constituted  as  to 
see  everything  through  a  high-colored  medium.  Whatever  knowledge,  or  talent, 
or  courage,  or  other  good  qualities  such  men  may  possess,  nature  has  not  formed 
them  for  the  command  of  armies,  or  the  direction  of  great  military  operations.** 
This  key  will  aid  us  in  the  interpretation  of  that  extraordinary  tendency  to  exag 
gerate  the  force  of  the  enemy  which  we  find  him  displaying  at  the  very  outset  of 
his  career,  and  which  continued  to  grow  upon  him  throughout  its  whole  course. 

The  first  instance  in  which  we  have  a  distinct  utterance  from  General  McClellan 
on  the  point  of  the  relative  strength  of  his  own  and  the  enemy's  force  is  in  a  letter 
addressed  by  him  to  the  Secretary  of  War  in  the  latter  part  of  October,  1861.*  In 
this  communication  he  uses  the  following  language  : 

"  So  much  time  has  passed,  and  the  winter  is  approaching  so  rapidly,  that  but  two  courses  are 
left  to  the  Government,  viz.:  to  go  into  winter  quarters,  or  to  assume  the  offensive  withforct 
greatly  inferior  in  numbers  to  tn«  army  I  regarded  as  desirable  and  necessary. 

Now,  the  first  question  is,  what  number  he  regarded  as  not  only  "desirable  "  but 
*'  nesessary"  in  order  to  enable  him  to  assume  the  offensive.  Happily,  on  this  point 
we  have  from  himself  precise  information,  for  in  a  subsequent  part  of  the  same  com 
munication  he  gives  what  he  calls  an  "  estimate  of  the  requisite  force  for  an  advance 
movement  by  the  Army  of  the  Potomac."  It  is  as  as  follows  : 

"  Column  of  active  operations. , 150,000  men,  400  gun», 

Garrison  of  the  city  of  Washington , 85,000    "       40     ' 

To  guard  the  Potomac  to  Harper's  Ferry * 5,000    "       12     " 

To  guard  the  Lower  Potomac 8,000    "       24     " 

Garrison  for  Baltimore  and  Annapolis 10,000    "       12     • 

Total  effective  force  required 208,000  men,  488  guns, 

or  an  aggregate,  present  and  absent,  of  about  240,000  men,  should  the  losses  by  sickness,  &c.,  nott 
rise  to  a  higher  per  centage  than  at  present." 

As  the  strength  of  an  army,  like  any  other  means  for  the  accomplishment  of  a 
certain  end,  is  necessarily  controlled  by  the  object  to  be  accomplished  and  the  re 
sistance  to  be  overcome,  we  must  seek  the  rationale  of  the  extraordinary  estimate  put 
forth  by  General  McClellan  of  the  military  force  required  as  an  indispensable  condi 
tion  precedent  to  any  offensive  operations,  in  his  calculation  of  the  strength  of  the 
army  which  the  rebels  were  able  to  confront  him  withal.  Fortunately  on  this  point, 
also,  we  are  not  left  in  the  dark,  for  he  goes  on  to  state. that  all  his  information 
showed  that  in  November,  1861,  "  the  enemy  had  a  force  on  the  Potomac,  not  less 
than  150,000  strong,  well  drilled  and  equipped,  ably  commanded,  and  strongly  en- 
tre-nched." 

If  it  be  true  that  at  any  period  during  the  fall  or  winter  of  1861 --2,  the  rebels  had 
"on  the  Potomac"  an  army  of  the  strength  claimed  by  General  McClellan — an  army 
of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men — then  we  must  concede  that  his  estimate  of 
the  army  he  himself  needed — namely,  an  effecting  fighting  column  of  the  same 
strength — was  not  excessive,  and  that  his  reiterated  demands  for  more  men,  even 
a-t  this  early  period,  were  the  result  of  a  wise  appreciation  of  the  necessities  of  the 
ease.  But  if  it  can  be  shown  that  this  rebel  colossus  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand  men.  was  a  monstrous  delusion,  the  figment  of  a  "  heat-oppressed  brain,"  we 
shall  reqi.ire  to  find  other  terms  in  which  to  characterize  his  conduct  and  his 
clamor. 

*  Keport,  p.  8. 


7 

Now,  I  think  I  can  show  that  the  rebel  army  on  the  Potomac,  so  far  from 
being  of  the  force  of  150,000  men,  was  never  more  than  one-third  that  number.  The 
battle  of  Bull  Run  was  fought  on  the  part  of  the  rebels  with  a  force  of  less  than 
thirty  thousand  men.  General  Beauregard,  in  his  official  report,  says :  "  The  effec 
tive  force  of  all  arms  of  the  (Confederate)  Army  of  the  Potomac  on  that  eventfai 
morning,  including  the  garrison  of  Camp  Pickens,  did  not  exceed  21,833  men,  an3 
29  guns.  The  Army  of  the  Shenandoah,  (Johnston's,)  ready  f  r  action  in  the  field, 
may  be  set  down  at  6,000  men  and  20  guns,  and  its  total  strength  at  8,334" 

We  arc  then  to  believe  that  the  rebel  army  in  the  interval  of  three  months,  be 
tween  the  end  of  July  and  the  end  of  October,  leaped  from  thirty  thousand  men  to 
a  hundred  and  fifty  Itiousand!  Credat  Judceus !  It  is  too  monstrous  to  believe.  H 
would  take  double  the  time  even  to  brigade  such  a  herd  of  men.  It  would  indee3 
be  difficult  to  say  what  the  precise  strength  of  the  rebel  force  was  during  the  period 
referred  to,  especially  as  it  varied  greatly,  having  attained  a  certain  maximum, 
then  declined  by  the  expiration  of  the  term  of  service,  and  then  commenced  to  a»- 
eend  once  more  when  the  first  conscription  came  into  force.  I  do  not,  therefore, 
attempt  to  do  this.  I  merely  desire  to  show  that  the  swelling  figures  that 
affrighted  the  soul  of  the  then  head  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  existed  only  in  hie 
imagination,  and  to  fix  a  maximum  beyond  which  it  is  certain  the  rebel  army  did 
*ot  go. 

During  the  autumn  of  1861,  while  the  rebel  army  was  still  at  Cent-rville,  a  letter 
.„  written  from  that  place  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  military  authorities.  The  writer, 
referring  to  the  flutter  that  existed  in  the  ranks  of  their  army  in  regard  to  the  cre 
ation  of  a  certain  number  of  Major  Generals,  tells  how  the  Confederate  Arm^  was 
organized  into  brigades  of  four  divisions  each,  like  ours,  but  that  they  only  pm  tw» 
brigades  into  a  division — that  is,  they  put  eight  regiments  or  battalions  instead  of 
twelve,  as  we  have.  "Now,"  says  the  writer,  "this  makes  quite  a  stir  as  to  the 
appointment  of  the  twelve  Major  Generals."  This  wo  ild  give  them  twenty-foaf 
brigades,  or  ninety-eix  regiments,  The  average  strength  of  their  regiments  at  that 
time  certainly  did  not  exceed  that  of  our  own  at  the  same  period,  600  men  ;  and 
this  would  give  them  a  total  of  57,600  men.* 

Now,  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  General  McClellan  himself,  six  months  after  th* 
date  of  his  estimate  of  the  rebel  force  '*on  the  Potomac,"  at  150,000  men,  gives 
another  estimate  made  by  his  chief  of  the  secret  service  corps  on  the  8th  of  March, 
in  which  the  rebel  troops  at  Manassas,  Centreville,  Bull  Run,  Upper  Occoquan,  aad 
vicinity  are  put  down  at  80,000.  Note  that  this  was  after  the  rebel  conscription 
bad  gone  into  force  and  had  swelled  the  Confederate  ranks  with  its  harvesting  ;  and 
that,  notwithstanding  all  this,  it  gives  a  >esult  less  by  seventy  thousand  than  the  fig 
ure  made  out  by  General  McClellan  in  the  month  of  November.  At  one  stroke  the 
rebel  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  in  buckram  had  dwindled  by  a  half! 

From  all  these  data,  I  believe  I  am  authorized  in  concluding  that  Johnston  at 
no  time  had  on  the  Potomac  an  army  of  over  50,000  men.  And  it  was  before  this  con 
temptible  force  that  our  magnificent  army  of  three  times  its  strength — no,  not  the 
«rmy,  but  its  commander — stood  paralyzed  for  eight  months!  Such  a  spectacle  th* 
history  of  the  world  never  before  presented. 

Whether  General  McClellan  ever  really  believed  that  he  had  in  front  of  him  an 
army  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men,  or  anything  like  that  figure,  is  a  poinl 
•which  I  do  not  preteed  to  determine.-}-  But  certain  it  is  that  having  fixed  upon 
this  number,  all  his  subsequent  efforts  eeem  to  have  beea  directed,  not  to  the  taefe 
•f  destroying  the  enemy  before  him,  but  of  forcing  the  Government  to  give  him.* 
command  which  he  could  never  have  brought  into  action  in  any  battle-field  Vir 

*Tbere  are  those,  indeed,  who  put  the  rebel  force  on  the  Potomac  at  an  even  lower  figure.  Mr. 
Harllvrt,  who  at  this  time  was  within  the  rebel  Hoes  and  had  access  to  good  sources  of  informa 
tion,  says  in  t-fae  notes  to  his  translation  of  the  pamphlet  of  the  Prince  de  Joinvilieon  the  Aruxy  »l 
the  I'otoraac. 

"  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  when  the  history  of  the  present  war  shall  come  to  be  writiea 
fairly  and  in  full,  it  will  be  found  that  General  Johnston  never  intended  to  hold  Manassas  and  Gen- 
treville  against  any  serious  attack  ;  that  bis  army  at  those  points  hnd  suffered  jrre;Uly  during  live 
autumn  arid  winter  of  1861  2,  and  that  from  October  to  March  he  never  had  an  tfl&lve  force  & 
more,  tluin  40,000  men  under  his  orders  '» 

t  It  is  p^sible  he  did,  for  it  is  astonishing  the  tricks  which  the  fears  and  the  fancies  of  a  mao 
ibn*  unhappily  organized)  will  play  him;  and  I  am  willing  to  believe  that  Grmrai  McCleHa* 
was  quite  as  much  deceived  as  deceiving  It  is  possible  General  McCMlan  really  bettered  the 
tebel*  had  150  000  men  on  the  Potomac,  when  they  never  had  a  third  of  that  number,  just  as  « 
is  possible  lie  believi  d  they  had  one  hundred  thousand,  then  two  hundred  thousand,  then  two 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men  on  the  I'eninjnla,  when  the  trujh  w_as  tkey  ne_vejt  had  aver  70.J8W> 
«aen — or  as  he-  believed  they  invaded  Maryland  with  a  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  men,  whea 
their  total  force  was  fifty -five  thousand.  All  this,  I  any.  is  possible;  bal  alas  for  the  hapless  o» 
ttoc  whoee  fate  was  committed  to  the  keeping  of  a*cA  a  tender  I 


8 

innia  furnishes.  From  this  time  forth  begins  a  series  of  whinings  and  whimperings 
lor  troops,  the  most  extraordinary  ever  put  on  record.  "  I  have  not  the  force  I 
asked  for;"  "send  me  more  troops"  became  the  perpetual  cry.  These,  with  the 
occasional  expression  of  his  determination  to  "  do  the  best  he  can"  with  what  pitiful 
force  he  had,  and  to  "  share  its  fate,"  form  the  staple  of  every  communication. 

Now,  when  General  McClellan  was  forming  this  heroic  resolve,  will  any  one  im 
agine  how  much  of  a  force  he  had?  He  had  asked  for  240,000  men,  from  which  to 
take  a  fighting  column  of  150,000.  It  is  true,  he  was  never  able  to  get  this  number, 
feut  it  is  perhaps  worth  while  determining  what  he  did  get. 

It  appears  from  the  official  reports  that  on  the  moming  o£  the  27th  October,  the 
aggregate  strength  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  168,&l8rnen — present  for  duty, 
169,452  On  January  1,  1862,  it  was  219  707— present  for  duty,  191,480  On  Feb 
ruary  1,  it  was  222,196 — present  for  duty,  193  142.  Such  was  the  pitiful  bagatelle 
of  a  force  he  had  under  his  command  1  He  had  a.^ked  for  240  000  ;  he  could^  never 
get  over  222,196;  and  one  can  sympathize  with  his  sense  of  ill  treatment  in  coa- 
sequence. 

We  think,  however,  that  we  have  read  of  brilliant  campaigns  and  splendid  victo 
ries  achieved  with  something  less  than  two  hundred  and  forty  thousand  men.  If 
we  recollect  aright  Napoleon  made  his  first  great  Italian  campaign  with  under  forty 
thousand  men  ;  fought  Austerlitz  with  forty-five  thousand  and  Marengo  with  thirty- 
five  thousand;  and  we  think  we  have  heard  that  Wellington,  in  the  whole  Penin 
sular  war,  never  had  over  thirty  thousand  ;  that  Turenne  more  frequently  coga- 
manded  ten  thousand  than  fifty  thousand;  that  Maryborough  won  Blenheim  with 
fifty  six  thousand,  and  Ramil lies  with  sixty  thousand  troops;  and  that  Frederick 
the  Great  con  ucted  the  Seven  Years'  War,  against  a  coalition  of  more  than  half  of 
Europe,  with  an  army  never  exceeding  a  hundred  thousand  men.  But  they  were 
old  fotties  in  those  days,  and  it  was  left  for  the  "  Young  Napoleon,"  who  had  never 
Landled  ten  thousand  troops  in  his  life,  to  require  double  a  hundred  thousand  to  fill 
op  the  measure  of  his  swelling  ambition.  » 

In  fact,  the  trouble  was  not,  that  General  McClellan  had  too  small  a  force;  he  had 
too  large  a  force.  He  had  fashioned  a  Frankenstein  which  all  his  power  could  not 
Control — a  sword  was  put  into  his  hand  which  not  only  he  was  unable  to  wield,  but 
which  dragged  him  to  the  ground. 

IV. 

THE  MODERN  FABIUS  AND  HIS  FALSE  PRETENCES. 

Were  it  true  that  the  army  put  into  the  hands  of  General  MeCleLan,  instead  of 
being  twice  or  thrice  the  strength  of  the  rebel  force  on  the  Potomac,  as  I  have 
shown,  was  in  reality  doubly  outnumbered  by  an  enemy  "not  less  than  150,000 
•trong,  well  drilled  and  equipped,  ably  commanded,  and  etrorigly  entrenched;"  the 
£act  might  well  give  us  cause  before  passing  censure  on  an  inactivity  which,  how 
ever  deplorable,  would  still  have  had  much  to  warrant  it  But  you  have  seen  how 
this  pretence  has  been  swept  away  by  a  scrutiny  of  facts;  and  I  now  proceed  to 
show  that  the  only  remaining  excuses  he  offers  are  equally  without  foundation. 
Th«se  are  summed  up  in  the  following  paragraph:* 

"The  records  of  the  War  Department  show  my  anxiety  and  efforts  to  assume  active  offensi  ve  ope 
rations  in  the  fall  and  early  winter.  It  is  only  just  to  say,  however,  that  the,  unprecedented  con 
dition  of  UM  roads  and  Virginia  toil  would  have  delayed  an  advance  till  February,  had  the  dU- 
eipline,  organization,  and  equipment  of  the  army  tn-.-n  as  complete  at  the  close  of  the  full  us  wad 
necessary,  and  as  I  desired  and  labored  against  every  impediment  to  make  them." 

The  first  element  enumerated  is  the  roads  and  the  weather,  the  condition  of  which 
General  McClellan  tells  us  was  "  unprecedented."  If  there  be  any  inference  to  be 
drawn  from  this  expression  and  its  context,  it  is  that  they  were  "unpreceder.tedly** 
bad,  for  this  reason  is  given  in  excuse  for  not  moving.  Now  it  is  true  that  the  con 
dition  of  roads  of  Virginia  during  the  fall  and  winter  of  1861-2  was  "unpreceden 
ted,"  but  unprecedently  good — and  this,  happily,  is  not  a  matter  in  regard  to  which 
we  are  left  to  the  unsure  testimony  of  memory.  We  have  cotemporary  evidence 
which  establishes  the  fact  by  an  accumulation  perfectly  irrefragable.  General 
Franklin, f  testifying  under  oath  to  this  specific  point,  an  the  26th  of  December, 
1861,  says:  "  The  condition  of  the  roads  is  good."  General  Wadaworth,^  ou  the 
same  day  eays:  "The  roads  are  remarkably  good — perhaps  not  once  in  twenty  year* 
have  the  roads  at  Christmas  been  in  as  good  condition  as  they  are  now.  Having  had 

'Report,  p.  W. 

eort  °he  Conduct  ** tbe  War>  ToL  *'  *•  **' 


9 


long  period  of.  dry  vxather,  the  roads  are  very  good."     So  General  Fitz  John 
,er,*  in  reply  to  a  query  as  to  the  condition  of  the  roads,  says:  "  As  far  as  I 


this 
Portei 

know  they  are'  in  excellent'condition,  excellent  travelling  condition."  In  like  man 
ner  testified  a  score  of  officers;  I  need  not  cite  their  evidence,  but  will  limit  my- 
telf  to  the  testimony  of  a  rebel  witness.  Pollard. f  in  a  passage,  the  sting  of  which 
is  sharpened  by  its  justice,  says:  r>A  long,  lingering,  Indian  summer,  with  roads  more 
hard,  and  skies  more  beautiful,  than  Virgitia  had  seen  for  many  a  year,  invited  the 
enemy  to  advance.  He  steadily  refused  the  invitation  to  a  general  action.  The  ad 
vance  of  our  lines  was  tolerated  to  Munson's  Hill,  within  a  few  miles  of  Alexandria, 
and  opportunities  w^re  sought  in  vain  by  the  Confederates,  in  heavy  skirmishing, 
to  engage  the  lines  of  the  two  armies." 

Precisely  the  same  tendency  characterizes  General  McClellan'a  estimate  of  the 
comparative  condition  as  of  the  comparative  strength  of  his  own  and  the  enemy's 
army.  His  communications  of  the  period  referred  to  make  frequent  mention  of  the 
superior  discipline,  drill  and  equipment  of  the  rebels,  and  the  inferiority  in  these 
respects  of  his  own  force.  Now  it  is  difficult  to  conjecture  on  what  basis  General 
McClellan  constantly  makes  this  assertion  of  the  superior  fighting  powers  of  the 
rebels,  unless — with  a  credulity  insulting  to  the  manhood  of  the  loyal  States — the 
rebel  rhodomontade  on  this  head  had  been  swallowed  entire  by  him.  Abstractly 
considered,  they  ought  to  have  been  not  better  soldiers  but  worse  ;  for  though  their 
habits  of  life  and  social  training  had  been  of  a  kind  to  make  them  ultimately  very 
excellent  soldiers,  they  were  calculated  to  make  them  very  inferior  soldiers  at  the 
outset.^;  And  this  view  of  it  is  fortified  by  historical  testimony;  the  evidence  of 
all  observers  goes  to  show  that  previously  to  the  organization  of  the  permanent 
Confederate  Army  in  April  and  May,  1852,  and  while  the  provisional  army  was  stifl 
in  existence  and  officers  were  elected  by  the  men,  nothing  could  exceed  the  laxitj 
of  discipline,  the  demoralization  of  temper,  and  the  inferiority  in  arms,  equipment, 
and  transportation,  that  marked  the  rebel  force  in  Virginia.  If  that  force  afterwar3 
became  an  army  whose  formidable  valor  and  superb  discipline  we  have  too  often 
found  out  to  our  cost,  it  is  to  be  attributed  in  great  part  to  the  time  General  Me- 
Clellan  gave  them  for  consolidation,  and  the  prestige  they  gained  by  their  victo 
ries  over  him. 

But  all  comparison  is  superfluous;  what  I  say  is  that  General  McClellan's  claim 
that  there  was  anything  in  the  discipline  of  his  army  to  prevent  his  dealing  a  blow 
at  the  enemy  before  him,  is  a  shallow  makeshift  that  will  no  longer  serve.  If  it 
had  been  designed  to  make  a  Prussian  or  an  English  army — a  thing  of  pipeclay  and 
pedantry,  of  the  rattan  and  red  tape — there  might  be  some  force  in  the  call  for 
months  or  for  years,  in  which  to  perfect  this  painful  and  useless  education.  But  for 
modern  armies  there  is  but  one  way  ;  it  is,  after  the  rudiments  of  tactics  are  ae- 
hard  realities  of  war.  It  was  in  this  way,  and  not  by  the  pedantry  of  the  martinet 
that  the  armies  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  of  the  American  Revolution,  and  of  the 
great  French  Revolution,  weref>rmed.  In  1813  rough  German  levies  fought  almost 
before  they  were  drilled,  and  at  Bautzen  French  recruits  were  victorious  over  the 
elaborately  trained  machines  that  formed  the  armies  of  Austria,  Prussia  and  Russia. 
Disastrous  as  Bull  Run  was  in  its  military  results,  it,  beyond  a  doubt,  did  more  t» 
make  our  men  soldiers  than  all  the  reviews,  parades,  and  sham  fights,  with  which 
General  McClellan  amused  a  country  whose  life  and  national  honor  were  all  the 
while  ebbing  away. 

I  have  now  exhausted  the  several  reasons  alleged  by  General  McClellan  in  excuse 
for  his  long  delay,  from  August,  1861,  to  April,  1862.  I  have  shown  that  there  ia 
nothing  in  these  excuses,  whether  drawn  from  the  condition  of  the  roads  and  the 
season,  or  from  the  strength  and  discipline  of  our  own  army,  or  that  of  the  rebels, 
to  justify  it.  No,  no!  Not  all  the  shallow  devices  which  a  year  of  afterthought 
ean  bring  to  the  extenuation  <  f  military  incapacity  can  either  explain  or  exculpate 
that  fatal  delay  which  gave  the  rebels  their  best  ally,  Time ;  which  made  the  timii 
among  us  despair,  and  the  proudest  haag  their  heads  with  shame  ;  and  which 
almost  authorized  foreign  recognition  of  the  rebellion  by  our  seeming  inability  to 
put  it  down. 

V. 
"MY  PLAN  AND  YOUR  PLAN." 

Whether  General  McClellan  ever  would  have  been  ready  to  advance  on  the  en«- 
my,  is  a  problem  the  solution  of  which  is  known  only  to  Omniscience  ;  but  the  spell 

*Ihtd.  p.  171. 

tFirst  year  of  the  War,  p.  178. 

^Prince  de  Joinvilie  on  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  p.  101. 


10 

was  at  length  broken,  not  by  the  motion  of  McClellan,  but  by  a  word  of  initiative 
attered  by  the  President.  On  the  27th  of  January,  1862,  Mr.  Lincoln  issued  -'Gen- 
eral  War  Order  No.  1,"  directing  "that  the  22d  day  of  February,  1862,  be  the  day 
for  a  general  movement  of  the  land  and  naval  forces  of  the  United  States  against 
the  insurgent,  forces.'' 

As  the  reason  for  ordering  a  "genera?  movement"  on  the  day  indicated  may  not  be 
universally  intelligible  and  has  frequently  been  made  a  matter  of  wonderment  by 
General  McClellan's  partisans,  a  word  on  that  head  will  not  be  out  of  place.  Shortly 
after  coming  into  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  General  McClellan  began 
to  urge  that  all  the  armies  of  the  Union  should  be  put  under  the  direction  of  a 
"singie  will"  In  his  letter  of  October,  1861,  addressed  to  the  Secretary  of  War, 
we  find  him  urging  this  with  the  utmost  emphasis,  and  even  making  it  an  indispen 
sable  condition  of  any  advance  by  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.* 

Action,  on  ant/  terms,  being  the  supreme  desire  of  the  Government,  General  Mo- 
Clellan  was,  on  the  1st  of  November,  invested  with  the  control  of  the  armies  of 
the  United  States  as  General-in  Chief.  Bewildering  though  one  finds  the  retrospect 
of  such  impotence  of  ambition  as  inspired  this  man  to  take  on  his  pigmy  shoulders 
a  burden  which  a  colossus  like  Napoleon  never  attempted  to  bear — the  task  of  at 
once  personally  directing  the  operation  of  an  army  of  two  hundred  thousand  men 
in  an  active  campaign,  and  superintending  the  advance  of  half  a  dozen  other  ar 
mies  arrayed  along  a  front  of  five  or  six  thousand  miles — it  remains,  nevertheless,  a 
fact  of  history. 

Having  been  vested  with  the  control  of  all  the  armies  of  the  Republic,  General 
McClellan  conceived  the  plan  of  a  simultaneous  advance  of  all  these  forces — a  plan, 
which  considering  that  the  several  armies  were,  as  I  have  said,  distributed  along 
a  front  of  five  or  six  thousand  miles,  with  lines  of  operation  running  through  differ 
ent  climates  and  varying  weather,  was  as  impossible  as  it  was  puerile.  At  the  wave 
of  the  baton  of  the  mighty  maestro  the  whole  vast  orchestra  was  to  strike  up. 
Until  then,  let  all  men  hold  there  peace!  In  a  word,  we  have  here  the  first  draft 
of  that  famous  "  anaconda"  strategy,  which  planted  a  dozen  different  armies  on  as 
many  lines  of  operation,  all  on  the  exterior  circumference  of  the  rebellion,  leaving 
the  rebels  the  enormous  advantage  of  their  interior  position  and  giving  them  ample 
time  to  fortify  at  every  point 

And  it  was  in  view  of  this  favorite  plan  of  General  McClellan  for  a  simultaneous 
advance  along  the  whole  line  that  the  above  Executive  order  directing  a  "general 
movement "  on  the  22d  of  February  was  issued,  f 

An  advance  having  at  length  been  decided  on,  it  remained  to  determine  the  line 
by  which  this  advance  should  be  made,  being  in  mind  the  double  objective  of — 1st, 
the  rebel  army  at  Manassas,  and  2d,  the  rebel  capital,  Richmond. 

It  is  quite  certain  that  up  to  November  General  McClellan  held  no  other  view  of 
a  forward  movement  than  a  direct  advance  on  the  enemy  before  him.  At  what 
time  and  by  what  counsels  he  altered  his  mind  in  this  regard  are  points  on  which 
we  have  no  information.  But  a  change  of  purpose  had  meantime  taken  place,  and 
when  the  President,  four  days  after  the  promulgation  of  this  General  Order  for  an. 
advance,  issued  Special  War  Order  No.  1,  directing  a  flanking  movement  on  the 
rebel  position  at  Manassas,  it  immediately  appeared  that  he  and  General  McClellan 
had  different  views  in  regard  to  the  line  of  operatious  to  be  taken  up. 

Against  this  proposition  General  McClellan  set  his  face  with  a  determination  much 
stouter  than  the  logic  which  he  employed  to  support  that  determination.  Having 
obtained  permission  to  submit  his  objections  to  the  plan,  we  find  a  long  letter  from 
him  addressed  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  under  date  of  February  3,^  i"  which  the 
question  of  the  comparative  advantages  of  a  movement  on  the  enemy  at  Manassas, 
or  a  transfer  of  his  army  to  a  base  on  the  lower  Chesapeake,  is- elaborately  dsscus- 
aed.  This  is  a  problem  of  capital  importance,  and  so  I  shall  enter  with  son>e  ful 
ness  into  the  analysis  of  his  reasoning — endeavoring  not  to  omit  a  single  point  of 
any  weight  or  value. 

At  the  outset  of  his  discussion  of  a  movement  on  the  enemy  at  Manassas,  by  the 
rebel  right  flank,  General  McClellan  makes  certain  admissions  as  to  the  advantages 
of  such  an  attack,  to  which  I  call  the  particular  attention  of  the  freaper,  for  I 
regard  them  as  decisive  of  the  whole  question  as  to  the  comparative  advantage  of 
an  attack  on  Manassas,  or  a  transfer  of  base  to  any  point  on  the  lower  Chesapeake. 
He  admits  that  an  attack  on  the  rebel  right  flank  by  the  line  of  the  Oocoquan  would 

*  Eeport.  page  67. 

t  General  Mcflellen  had  promise*!,  if  made  General-in-Chief,  to  assume  the  offensive  before  th© 
25th  of  November.    I  need  hardly  say  that  this  promise  was  as  little  kept  as  all  his  others. 
$  Report,  pages  4S-48.  '••>  *W  i# 


11 

*  prevent  the  junction  of  the  enemy's  right  with  his  centre,"  affording  the  oppoto- 
nity  of  destroying  the  former;  would  ''remove  the  obstructions  to  the  navigation 
of  the  Potomac  ;"  would  l<  reduce  the  lenghth  of  wagon  transportation/'  and  would 
*'  strike  directly  at  his  main  railway  communication." 

Assuming  the  successful  execution  of  this  plan  what  would  have  been  the  result? 
Let  General  McClellan  answer  himself: 

"  Assuming  the  success  of  this  operation,  and  the  defeat  of  the  «nemy  as  certain,  the  question 
at  once  arises  as  to  the  importance  of  the  results  gained.  I  think  these  results  would  be  confined 
to  the  possession  of  the  fi3ld  of  battle,  the  evacuation  of  the  line  of  the  upper  Potomac  by  the  ene 
my,  an<l  the  moral  effect  of  the  victory;  important  results,  it  is  true,  but  not  decisive  of  the  war, 
nor  securing  the  destruction  of  the  enemy's  H&in  army,  for  he  could  fall  back  upon,  other  positions, 
and  fight  ua  again  and  again,  should  the  condition  of  his  troops  permit." 

A  tactical  victory  in  the  field,  the  compulsory  retreat  of  the  enemy  from  his  cher 
ished  position,  the  relief  the  blockade  of  the  Potomac,  and  the  "moral  effect  of  the 
victory"  with  the  losses,  disasters,  and  demoralization  that  would  have  been  inflict 
ed  on  them — all  of  which  General  McClellan  admits  were  within  his  grasp,  by  the 
movement  indicated — were  surely  well  worth  the  effort.  Why,  considering 
what  a  priceless  boon  such  a  result  would  have  been  at  that  time,  the  whole  nation 
would  have  called  him  blessed  1  But  it  would  not  have  been  "  decisive  of  the  war" 
— such  was  the  wildly  puerile  ambition  that  possessed  him;  and  in  order  to  end  the 
war,  he  resolved  to  seek  a  theatre  where  it  was  perfectly  evident  beforehand  and 
became  a  sad  matter  of  fact  afterward,  that  he  would  fitd  all  the  obstacles  there 
were  at  Manassas  with  none  of  its  advantages. 

This  theatre  of  war  was  some  point  on  the  lower  Chesapeake  bay,  either  Urbana 
on  the  Rappahannoek  or  Fort  Monroe.  The  advantages  of  this  base,  according  to 
Mc'Clellan's  reasoning,  is  that  "it  affords  the  shortest  possible  land  route  to  Rich 
mond,  striking  directly  at  the  heart  of  the  enemy's  power  in  the  East,"  and  that 
"  the  roads  in  that  region  are  passable  a-t  all  seasons  of  the  year." 

It  is  on  this  enormous  assumption  that  he  bases  the  whole  plan  of  campaign  !  He 
proposes  to  embark  his  troops  at  Alexandria,  go  down  the  Chesapeake  bay,  and  up 
the  Rappahannoek  to  Urbana,  or  down  to  Fortress  Monroe,  with  the  view  of  there 
finding  a  passage  to  Richmond,  where  the  roads  would  be  '-passable  at  all  seasons." 
It  is  hard  to  tell  where  to  begin  answering  a  statement  like  that.  How  did  he  know 
the  roads  there  were  "  passable  at  all  seasons?  "  It  would  certainly  be  natural  to 
conclude,  from  the  mere  physical  geography  of  the  region,  that  the  roads  are  not 
*'  passable  at  all  seasons."  We  have  there  precisely  the  physical  conditions  to 
make  impassable  roads — a  region  on  the  drainage  and  "divides"  of  rivers,  where 
the  streams,  losing  their  force,  spread  out  in  swamps  and  bogs.  But  if,  going  be 
yond  theoretical  considerations,  General  McClellan  had  taken  the  trouble  to  look  at 
the  map,  he  would  have  noticed,  on  the  march  of  fifty  miles  from  Urbana  to  Rich 
mond,  the  "  Dragon  >Swamp,"  and  half  dozen  other  swamps,  besides  the  Pamunky 
the  Matapony,  and  the  Chickahominy.  On  the  Peninsula  we  need  not  say  he  woidd 
have  found ;  we  know  what  he  did  find.  It  is  melancholy  to  think  that  the  fate  of 
a  campaign  should  be  intrusted  to  a  mind  capable  of  such  stupendous  assumptions. 

The  fat  t  of  the  matter  is,  McClellan' s  mind  had  already  broken  down  before  tke 
'problem  given  him  to  solve,  his  courage  had  oozed  out,  and  in  this  mood  he  was  willing 
to  look  anywhere,  anywhere  away  from  the  task  before  him.  But  it  was  not  long  be 
fore  he  practically  demonstrated  that,  in  transferring  his  base  from  Washington  to 
the  lower  Chesapeake,  he  merely  shifted,  but  did  not  remove  the  difficulty.  Codwni 
non  animum  mutant  qwi  trans  mare  currunt.  In  running  "  across  the  sea,"  indeed, 
he  changed  hie  "sky,"  but  not  the  task  imposed  upon  him.  It  still  met  him  in  the 
face  as  kuotty  and  more  knotty  than  before.  It  was  with  a  quite  prophetic  con 
sciousness  of  this  fact  that  President  Lincoln,  on  the  same  day  as  that  on  which 
General  McCellan's  letter  is  dated,  sent  to  him  the  following  note : 

EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  WASHINGTON,  February  3, 1862. 

MY  DKAR  SIR:  You  and  I  have  distinct  and  different  plans  for  a  movement  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac.  Yours  to  be  done  by  the  Chesapeake,  up  the  Rappahannoek  to  Urbana,  and  across  land 
to  the  terminus  of  the  railroad  on  the  Fork  river ;  mine  to  move  directly  to  a  point  on  the  rail 
road  southwest  of  Manassas. 

If  you  will  give  satisfactory  answers  to  the  following*  questions,  I  shall  gladly  yield  my  plan  to 
yours : 

1.  Does  not  your  plan  invole  a  greatly  larger  expenditure  of  time  and  money  than  mine  ? 

2.  Wherein  is  a  victory  more  certain  by  your  plan  than  mine? 
8.  Wherein  is  a  victory  more,  valuable,  by  your  plan  than  mine? 

In  fact,  would  it  not  be  less  valuable  in  this:  that  it  would  break  no  great  line  of  the  enemy'* 
communication,  while  mine  would? 
6.  In  case  of  disaster,  would  not  a  retreat  be  more  difficult  by  your  plan  than  mine? 

Yours,  truly,       ,  AOUA.IIAM  LINCOLN. 

The  sagacity  of  these  queries  is  not  less  conspicuous  than  the  compendious  cora- 


12 

pletemess  with  which  they  cover  the  whole  ground.  They  were  never  answf  red» 
aimply  because  they  were  and  are  unanswerable.  But  President  Lincoln,  feeling 
&e  weight  of  the  maxim,  that  a  general  will  do  better  following  an  inferior  plan 
which  is  his  own  than  a  superior  one  which  is  the  conception  of  another,  and,  above 
ftH,  desirous  that  some  move  should  be  made,  and  willing  to  sacrifice  any  miuor  con 
sideration  to  that  end,  allowed  General  McOlellan  to  have  his  own  way. 

That  general  and  his  partisans  hare  a  great  deal  to  say  about  the  supposed  inter 
ference  on  the  part  of  the  authorities  at  Washington  with  his  plans  and  purposes, 
and  no  opportunity  is  lost  to  give  currency 'to  the  notion  that  it  was  the  intermed 
dling  of  a  species  of  *'  Aulic  Couacil  "  at  Washington  which  caused  those  failures 
which  a  juster  criticism  is  compelled  to  lay  at  t,he  door  of  his  own  military  incapa 
city.  This  subterfuge  will  no  longer  serve,  for  the  evidence  of  his  own  report,,  when 
carefully  collated',  utterly  explodes  this  claim.  It  is  a  fact  worthy  of  note  that  the 
investigations  of  modern  German  historians  have  conclusively  proved,  that  the  vitu 
peration  which  an  intense  partisanship  cast  upon  the  Austrian  Aulic  Council,  and 
which  has  passed  into  and  long  held  a  place  in  the  acceptance  of  history,  is  its* If 
utterly  without  foundation,  and  some  degree  of  historical  justice  is  now  done  a 
body  which  bade  fair  to  *njoy  a  maligned  immortality.  But  it  needs  no  nice  his 
torical  criticism  to  show  that  the  shallow  claims  of  the  same  sort,  put  forth  to  ex 
tenuate  McClellan's  blunders,  are  even  more  baseless.  If  the  President,  as  the  Con 
stitutional  head  of  the  army,  is  blanuable  in  any  aspect  of  his  dealings  with  that 
general,  it  is  because  he  abnegated  himself  too  much — surrendered  too  much  of  his 
own  authority,  and  gave  into  the  hands  of  an  untried  man  a  power  little  short  of 
the  despotic.  While  history  will  recognize  that  the  actuating  motive  in  this  was  an 
unselfish  atd  patriotic  desire  to  leave  General  McClellan  un trammeled  liberty  of 
action,  it  is  questionable  whether  it  will  not  at  the  same  time  condemn  the  Presi 
dent's  surrender  of  his  own  convictions. 

But  while  General  McClellan  was  making  his  preparations  for  the  withdrawal  of 
his  army  to  Annapolis,  he  was  saved  all  further  trouble  on  this  head  by  a  movement 
on  the  part  of  the  Confederates,  no  less  startling  than  their  retirement  from  their 
fortified  position  at  Manassas  and  on  the  Potomac. 

The  withdrawal  of  the  rebels  from  the  line  of  Manassa?,  Centreville,  and  the 
lower  Potomac  began  in  February,  was  completed  on  the  8th  of  March,  and  became 
known  to  General  McClellan  and  the  Cabinet  on  the  following  day.  The  action 
taken  by  McClellan  <n  this  event  was  most  extraordinary.  In  place  of  sending  a 
light  movable  column  to  take  up  a  prompt  pursuit  of  the  rebels,  with  the  view  of 
harassing  their  rear,  he  waited  till  two  days  after  their  definite  withdrawal,  and  then 
instituted  a  general  movement  of  the  whole  army,  not  wilh  any  adequate  military 
view,  and  with  no  purpose  of  attempting  to  make  up  with  the  rebels,  but,  as  he 
says,  for  the  purpose  of  giving  the  troops  "an  opportunity  to  gain  some  experience 
on  the  march  and  bivouac  preparatory  to  the  campaign" — a  kind  of  education  of 
whick,  truly,  they  stood  in  great  need.* 

To  any  commander  not  hopelessly  wedded  to  a  preconceived  idea,  the  withdrawal 
•f  the  rebels  from  Manassas  behind  the  Rapidan,  before  a  single  man  had  been 
shipped  for  the  new  base,  would  have  suggested  the  wisdom  and  eveu  the  neeesxity 
of  a  change  of  plan.  All  th«  conditions  under  which  the  purpose  of  a  transfer  of 
the  army  to  Urbana  or  the  Peninsula  was  formed  were  changed  by  that  event.  The 
cardinal  conception  in  making  a  flank  movement  by  water  was  the  hope  which 
General  McClellan  entertained  of  being  able  to  reach  a  point  on  the  line  of  retreat 
«f  the  rebels  or  to  reach  the  front  of  Richmond  before  they  could* — circumstances 
under  which  they  would  doubtless  have  given  battle  with  great  disadvantage. 

The  move  of  the  enemy  ought  to  have  suggested  to  General  McClellan  that, 
whatever  their  purpose  was,  it  was  next  to  certain  that  they  would  be  in  force  to 
axeet  him  at  whatever  point  of  the  coast  he  might  choose  to  land.  It  should  have 
suggested  to  him  that  all  opportunity  of  making  an  offensive  manoeuvre  was  now 
at  end,  and  that  all  he  could  now  hope  to  do  was  to  make  a  transfer  of  base. 
It  suggested  to  him  none  of  these  things.\  It  eimply  suggested  to  him  to  change 
the  proposed  coast  expedition.  To  make  Urbana,  on  the  Rappahannock,  after  the 
rebe's  had  retired  behind  that  river,  was  out  of  the  question,  for  if  he  might  hope, 
under  cover  of  the  navy,  to  effect  a  landing,  ii  would  certainly  not  be  possible  for 
him  to  debouch  from  his  point  of  debarkation.  Under  these  circumstances  the  line 

*  The  Prince  de  Joinville  calls  this  movement  to  Manassas  and  back  again  '*  a  promenade" — a 
good  name  for  it,  but  the  most  senseless  and  aimless  "  promenade  "  ever  conceived  bv  a  g.  neral 
nf  the  rniost  of  actual  war  The 'promenade"  gave  the  soldiers  an  opportunity  of  seeing  for 
themselves  the  pitiful  obstacles  of  quaker guns  and  one-horte  unarmed  earthworks  that  had  so 
feng  alrighted  the  soul  of  their  general,  though  the  experience  we  are  sure,  did  not  come  hom» 
to  those  brave  men  without  proibuud  mortification  aad  disgust. 


13 

of  the  Peninsula — which  he  had  before  spoken  of  as  one  promising  "less  celerity 
and  brilliancy  of  result,"  and  only  to  be  adopted  in  case  "the  worst  came  to  the 
worst  " — remained  ;  and  this  he  immediately  chose. 

But  I  shall  show  that  this  decision  was  made  under  circumstances  that  brought 
him  into  direct  conflict  with  the  President's  most  explicit  orders  touching  the  safety 
of  Washington,  and  in  palpable  and  most  inexplicable  violation  of  the  conditions 
which  the  council  of  corps  commanders  adjudged  essential  to  any  movement  by  the 
line  of  the  Peninsula.  I  shall  farther  show  that  this  decision  forms  the  initial 
point  of  all  his  subsequent  disastera  in  that  hapless  campaign. 

VI. 
McCLELLAN'8  GRIEVANCE— THE  DETACHMENT  OF  MoDO WELL'S  CORPS. 

While  Mr.  Lincoln  was  disposed  to  waive  his  judgment  with  regard  to  the  stra 
tegic  rmrits  of  the  two  plans  of  advance  on  the  enemy,  he  by  no  means  felt  at  liber 
ty  to  permit  General  McClellan  to  proceed  in  the  execution  of  his  movement  by 
water  without  placing  him  under  such  conditions  as  should  remove  as  much  as  poa- 
«ible  the  danger  of  an  assault  upon  the  capital  by  the  en^my.  And  yet  even  hero 
he  did  not  undertake  to  decide  as  a  military  man,  upon  the  force  which  might  ba 
necessary  for  the  safety  of  Washington,  but  referred  that  question  to  the  concurrent 
opinion  of  General  McClellan  and  the  four  Generals  in  command  of  the  four  army 
«orps  into  which  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  had  been  divided,  simply  stipulating 
that  no  change  of  base  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  should  be  made  without 
leaving  such  a  force  in  and  about  Washington  as  should  leave  the  Capital  entirely 
•ecure,  not  merely  in  the  opinion  of  General  McClellan  himeelf,  but  in  the  opinion 
also  of  all  the  four  Generals  in  command  of  the  four  army  corps  constituting  lf& 
army.*  This  obliged  him  to  hold  a  conference  with  these  commanders,  in  the 
coarse  of  which  they  consented  to  the  proposed  movement  by  the  Peninsula  on,  cer 
tain  specific  conditions,  to  which  I  invite  the  particular  attention  of  the  reader. 
They  are  as  follows — to  wit: 

1st.  That  the  enemy's  vessel  Merrimac,  can  be  neutralized. 

2d  That  the  raeana  of  transportation,  sufficient  for  an  immediate  transfer  of  the  force  to  its  new 
be&e  can  be  ready  at  Wa.*hingtonand  Alexandria  to  move  down  the  I'otomac;  and 

8.  That  a  naval  auxiliary  force  can  be  had  to  silence,  or  aid  in  silencing,  the  enemy's  batteries 
on  York  Kiver. 

9th.  That  the  fore*  be  left  to  cover  Washington  shall  be  such  as  to  give  an  entire  feeling  of  secu 
rity  for  i;s  8al'ety"from  menace.  (Unanimous.) 

II.  If  i he  foregoing  cannot  be,  the  artny  should  then  be  moved  against  the  enf-my,  behind  the 
Eappaliannock,  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  and  the  means  for  constructing  bridges,  repairing 
railroads  and  stocking  them  with  materials  sufficient  for  supplying  the  army,  should  at  once  be 
collected  Cor  both  the  Orange  and  Alexandria  and  Aquia  and  Bichmond  Railroads,  t Unanimous ^ 

N.  B.  That  with  the  forts  on  the  right  bank  of  the  I'otomac  fully  garrisoned,  and  those  on  the 
left  bank  occupied,  «  covering  force,  in  front  of  the  Virginia  line  of  25,000  men  would  suffice.  (Keyes, 
Heintzelman  and  McDowell.)  A  total  of  40,000  men  lor  the  detence  ol  the  city  would  suffice . 
(jUiuaner.) 

In  the  interpretation  of  these  opinions  of  the  corps  commanders,  it  must  neces 
sarily  be  supposed  that  the  three  Generals  who  concurred  in  opinion,  intended  that 
all  the  fortifications  around  Washington  should  be  "  manned  "  or  "  occrpied,"  and 
that,  over  and  above  this,  tk>re  should  be  a  distinct  unit,  of  force  capable  of  beinpf 
moved,  of  twenty -five  thousand  men.  A?  three  of  the  Generals  concurred  in  thw 
opinion  the  opinion  of  the  fourth  may  be  thrown  out  of  view,  although  it  is  not  cer 
tain  whether  his  opinion  was  intended  to  apply  to  a  movable  force  over  and  abova 
ihe  garrisons,  or  to  include  the  garrisons  in  his  estimates  of  forty  thousand  men. 

It  is  evident  that  the  opinion  of  the  three  agreeing  Generals  was  lbrv  McClellan 
ihe  regulating  opinion,  with  which  he  was  bound  to  comply  in  carrying  out  the 
order  of  the  President 

Now  it  is  remarkable  that,  in  October,  when  he  contemplated  a  forward  move 
ment,  he  estimated, the  force  necessary  to  be  left  in  and  about  Washington,  at  thirty- 
five  thousand  men ;  and  this,  be  it  observed,  when  the  proposed  movement  contem 
plated  the  presence  ot  the  main  bod^1  of  the  army  in  front  of  the  Capital,  available 
in  its  protection  and  defetfce.  If  this  force  of  thirty-five  thousand  men  was  deemed 
necessary  by  General  McClellan,  as  the  proper  garrison  of  Washington,  when  the 
whole  army  was  expected  to  be  engaged  in  front  of  the  Capital,  much  more  would 
this  force  be  necessary  when  the  proposed  movement  looked  to  the  removal  of  the 
main  body  of  the  army  to  the  Peninsula,  far  beyond  the  possibility  of  being  irnrac- 

*  President's  General  War  No.  3,  Beport,  p.  58, 


diately  available  for  the  defence  of  Washington,  should  the  movements  of  the  enemy 
endanger  the  Capital. 

The  conclusion  is  irresistible,  therefore,  that  General  McOlellan  was  bound  by  the 
President's  order  to  leave,  as  the  garrison  of  the  forts  around  Washington,  not  lesa 
than  thirty-five  thousand  men;  and  over  and  above  this  a  movable  unit  of  force, 
or,  in  other  words,  an  army  of  twenty-five  thousand  men,  without  taking  into  con 
sideration  the  troops  necessary  for  the  defence  of  Baltimore  or  Harper's  Ferry,  or 
the  guards  along  the  Potomac,  both  above  and  below  Washington  ;  for  the  garri 
sons  necessary  for  these  places  were  all  estimated  for  separated  in  his  report  of 
October,  1861. 

It  is  plain  from  this  statement,  the  verity  of  which  is  matter  of  official  record,  that 
when  General  McClellan  received  the  order  of  the  8th  of  March,  and  had  obtained 
the.opinion  of  the  four  Generals,  as  just  stated,  his  first  duty  was  to  comply  with  the 
President's  order  as  a  condition  prior  to  issuing  any  order  himself  in  furtherance  of 
his  plan  of  a  campaign  on  the  Peninsula.  He  should  first  have  designated  the 
troops  necessary  for  the  security  of  Washington,  not  according  to  his  own  individ 
ual  judgment,  but  in  conformity  with  the  opinions  of  the  four  Generals,  or  of  the 
three  which  concurred  in  opinion.  His  next  point  of  duty  was  to  consider  whether 
his  remaining  force,  after  deducting  the  force  designated  for  the  security  of  Wash 
ington,  would  be  such  as  to  justify  him  in  undertaking  a  campaign  by  his  proposed 
line :  and  if  he  thought  it  was  not,  it  was  his  plain  duty  to  represent  the  case  to  the 
President  before  .giving  any  orders,  having  in  view  his  proposed  campaign. 

If  General  McOlellan  had  taken  this  course,  which  both  candor  and  duty  required, 
he  would  have  been  spared  the  painful  position  of  being  in  the  wrong  in  the  con 
flict  which  ensued,  consequent  on  the  necessity  which  his  conduct  had  devolved 
upon  the  President,  of  making  good  his  own  orders,  after  General  McClellan  left 
Washington  for  the  Peninsula,  for  it  was  not  until  after  his  departure  that  the  Pres 
ident  became  acquainted  with  the  fact  that,  should  McClellan's  orders  be  carried 
out,  his  own  express  orders  would  be  disobeyed  :  that  is,  Washington,  or  the  fortifi 
cations  around  it,  would  not  be  manned  as  required,  in  the  opinion  of  the  three 
Generals,  nor  would  there  be  a  covering  army  of  twenty-five  thousand  men,  as 
required  by  the  same  opinion.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  discovered  that  the  amount 
of  force  left  in  and  about  Washington,  and  in  front  of  it,  at  Warrenton  and  at  other 
points,  fell  short  of  twenty  thousand  men,  most  of  them  being  hew  troops,  and  though 
»ot  disorganized,  they  were  by  no  means  organized,  as  was  clearly  set  forth  in  offi- 
«ial  statements,  and  the  force  fell  short  numerically  of  that  which  he  was  required 
to  leave  by  some  forty  thousand  men!* 

Not,  as  1  have  said,  till  after  General  McClellan's  departure  did  the  consequence 
of  his  disingenuous  conduct,  which  left,  the  Capital  of  the  nation  in  a  condition 
almost  to  be  taken  by  a  single  coup  de  main,  become  apparent.  It  then  became 
the  President's  imperative  duty  to  take  measures  to  secure  the'  end  which  General 
MeClellan  had  so  grossly  neglected,  and  he  did  so  in  the  following  order : 

ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S  OFFICE,  April  4, 1862. 

By  direction  of  the  President,  General  McDowell's  army  corps  has  been  detached  from  the 
force  under  your  immediate  command,  and  the  General  is  ordered  to  report  to  the  Secretary 
of  War .  Letter  by  mail . 

L.  THOMAS,  Adjutant-General, 
General  McClellan. 

If  the  exposition  already  given  has  the  force  and  the  truth,  and  the  force  of 
truth  which  I  think  belong  to  it,  it  will  have  been  made  apparent  that  it  was 
General  McClellan's  own  neglect  of  the  command  of  the  President,  embodying 
the  opinions  of  the  Corps  Commanders,  that  drew  upon  him  the  consequences, 
whatever  they  were,  of  the  above  order  for  the  detention  of  McDowell's  Corps — 
an  order  which  was  issued  for  no  other  reason  than  because  General  McClellau  had 
failed  in  his  duty,  and  thereby,  in  the  judgment  of  all  men,  the  facts  being 
known,  was  precluded  from  all  right  of  comment  upon  the  President's  order,  and 
he  himself  must  be  held  responsible  for  whatever  consequences  resulted  from  that 
order. 

I  state  this  simply  to  establish  the  principle  in  the  case;  but  I  shall,  in  the 
e«quel,  demonstrate  that  the  consequences  of  McDowell's  detention  were  by  no 
means  as  important  as  General  McClellan  is  disposed  to  allege,  because,  of  the  three 
divisions  of  McDowell's  Corps  Franklin's  was  sent  to  him  immediately,  and  McCalPs 

*  If  General  Me*  lellan  made  the  full  and  fair  report  of  all  the  transactions  of  this  period  which  a 
decent  respect  for  the  truth  of  history  demands,  he  would  have  inserted  at  this  point  the  report  the 
General  Wadsworth,  Military  Governor  of  Washington,  on  the  strength  and  condition  of  the  forc« 
left  lor  the  defence  of  the  Capital— a  document  which  was  certainly  accessible  to  him.  It  will  bs 
found  at  p  816  (V^ol.  1)  of  the  Keport  on  the  Uonduct  of  the  War. 


,.,--._     j 


15 

in  ample  time  to  participate  in  the  battles  before  Richmond ;  I  shall  demonstrate 
that,  had  McDowel's  entire  Corps  been  sent  to  him  at  the  time  that  Franklin's  di 
vision  was  forwarded,  General  McClellan  could  hare  made  no  use  of  it,  for  reasons 
which  will  appear  at  the  proper  time ;  and  I  shall  demonstrate  that  McDowell'* 
force  at  Fredericksburgh  was  quite  as  useful  to  General  McClellan  as  it  would  have 
been  if  sent  to  him,  since  its  presence  threatening  Richmond  called  off  an  equal  por 
tion  of  the  enemy's  force,  which  he  would  otherwise  have  had  in  his  front. 

Another  point  must  here  be  explained,  having  some  connection  in  General  Mc- 
Clellan's  mind,  with  the  action  of  the  President  in  the  detention  of  McDowell's 
Corps,  and  it  is  this:  There  was  among  the  troops  ia  front  of  Washington,  consti 
tuting  a  portion  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  a  dvision  of  about  eleven  thousand 
men,  under  the  command  of  General  Blenker.  Shortly  before  the  departure  of  Gen 
eral  McClellan  for  the  Peninsula,  the  President  had  a  personal  interview  with  him, 
in  which  he  expressed  his  desire  to  send  that  division  to  what  was  called  the  Moun 
tain  Department,  in  Middle  Virginia,  with  the  view  of  enabling  General  Fremont  to 
move  a  co-operating  column  in  conjunction  with  the  advance  of  the  army  of  tb« 
Potomac.  General  McClellan  was  opposed  to  the  movement  of  that  division,  bat 
finally  acquiesced  in  it  In  his  allusion  to  this  interview  with  the  President,  Gen 
eral  McClellan  states  that  the  President  assured  him  no  further  reduction  of  hia 
army  destined  for  the  Peninsula  should  be  made;  and  he  then  refers  to  the  order 
detaining  McDowell's  Corps  as  a  violation  of  the  expressed  promise  made  by  the 
President. 

"The  President,"  eays  he,  "having  promised,  in  an  interview  following  his  order  of  March  9L 
withdrawing  Blenker's  division  of  10,1)00  men  from  my  command,  that  nothing  of  the  sort  should 
be  repeated— that  I  might  rest  assured  that  the  campaign  should  proceed,  with  no  further  deduc 
tions  from  the  fore"  upon  which  its  operations  had  been  planned,  I  may  9onft»i  to  havintfbttn 
shocked  at  thin  order, "  etc. * 

In  this  "  fine  frenzy  "  there  is  a  sad  want  of  ingenuous  statement ;  for  General  Me- 
Clellan  knew,  he  could  not  but  have  known,  that  the  promise  referred  to  must  have 
been  made  by  the  Presideat,  with  the  implicit  understanding  that  his  own  orders 
touching  the  security  of  Washington  would  be  carried  out.  The  President  placed  too 
much  leliance  upon  General  McClellan's  sense  of  duty  and  propriety  to  intimate 
a  doubt  as  to  his  faithful  obedience  to  his  very  pointed  and  written  orders,  looking 
to  the  security  of  the  capital.  Under  these  circumstances  General  McClellan  had 
no  right  to  appeal  to  the  promise  of  the  President,  except  in  terms  of  humility  for 
the  attempt  to  practice  a  deception  upon  the  high  functionary  who  made  it,  whose 
relations  to  the  Commander  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  necessarily  of  so  con 
fidential  a  character  as  to  make  the  utmost  candor  on  the  part  of  the  subordinate 
a  duty  of  the  -first  importance  ;  for  it  cannot  be  expected  of  the  Chief  Magistrate  of 
a  great  people  to  watch  with  jealous  suspicion  the  chief  officers  in  command  of  his 
armies,  lest  they  should  deal  covertly  with  him  in  their  execution  of  his  proper  or 
ders.  If  an  evasion  of  duty  is  an  offence  of  the  most  shameful  character  in  any 
subordinate  towards  his  superior,  utterly  subversive  of  all  discipline  in  an  army, 
and  destructive  of  its  efficiency,  much  more  is  this  a  crime  of  the  first  magnitude 
in  a  general  officer,  on  whose  unity  of  action  with  the  purposes  of  his  superior  the 
success  of  an  army  almost  entirely  depends. 

I  now  proceed  to  the  consideration  of  the  other  condition,  the  fulfillment  of 
which  was,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Corps  Commanders,  an  essential  prior  to  any  move 
ment  by  the  line  of  the  Peninsula.  It  is  the  following  terms,  to  wit:  "That  the 
enemy's  vessel,  the  Merrimac,  can  be  nutralized."  On  this  point  the  opinion  of 
the  Corps  Commanders  was  unanimous. 

It  is  hardly  conceivable  how  General  McClellan  could  disregard  the  warning'  of 
his  four  Generals  on  this  point,  and  undertake  his  expedition  in  spite  6f  the  know 
ledge  which  he  must  himself  have  had  of  the  power  of  the  Merrimac  f  It  is  true 
that  General  McClellan  drew  from  Commodore  Goldsborough  a  declaration  that  he 
could  neutralize  the  Merrimac.  But  this  opinion  went  no  further,  as  Genercl  Mc 
Clellan  ought  to  have  known,  that  an  assurance  that,  with  the  aid  of  the  Monitor, 
and  of  his  other  navnl  vessels,  he  could  prevent  the  Merrimac  from  leaving  Eliza 
beth  River,  or,  at  all  events,  prevent  her  passing  by  Fortress  Monroe  into  Chesa 
peake  Bay. 

But  in  order  to  do  this,  that  is,  in  order  to  "neutralize  "  the  Merrimac,  General 
McCleilan  must  have  known  that  the  power  of  Commodore  Goldsborough  was  itself 
neutralized  by  Ihe  Merrimac ;  so  that  it  was  impossible  for  the  navy  at  Fortress  Moii- 

*  Report  p.  56. 

t  The  written  instructions  of  the  confederate  navy  department  to  the  commanders  of  the 
Merrimac  show  that  he  was  under  orders  to  pass  out  bejond  Fortress  Monroe  and  destroy  Mc- 
Cieuan's  water  transportation  in  Chesapeake  -Bay, 


16 

toe  to  give  General  McClellan  any  effectual  aid,  either  on  the  James  or  York  rivere, 
tne  presence  of  the  navy,  as  just  intimated,  being  necessary  to  watch  the  Merrimae. 
It  is  important  to  understand  fully  this  state  of  things,  because  General  McClellan 
complains,  in  his  Report,  of  the  want  of  assistance  from  the  navy,  when,  in  point  of 
fact,  he  had  no  right  to  count  upon  it,  and  would  have  had  no  right  even  if  his  four 
Generals  had  not  warned  him  of  the  dangerous  power  of  the  Merrimae.  The  navy 
•was  doing  all  it  possibly  could  do  in  covering  his  water  line  of  commuuications,  and 
fead  no  force  left  with  which  to  perform  any  other  work.  This  he  ought  to  have 
known  and  no  doubt  he  did  know  it,  and  hence  I  say  his  complaints  on  this  head 
are  not  ingenous.  They  are  the  resort  and  the  after-  thought  of  a  defeated  General, 
whose  failure  was  due  to  himself;  but  who  has  sought  in  this  go-called  "Report" 
to  throw  the  responsibility  upon  others. 

The  result  of  this  reasoning  is,  I  think,  to  show  that  not  one  of  the  conditions 
defined  by  the  council  of  Corps  Commanders  as  essential?,  prior  to  the  adoption  of 
the  Peninsula  route,  was  complied  with  by  General  McClellan.  He  neither  left 
Washington  secure,  nor  secured  the  neutralization  of  the  Merrimae,  nor  secured 
the  co-operation  of  the  navy.  In  absence  of  these  requirements,  his  plain  duty  was 
the  adoption  of  the  other  alternative  agreed  upon  by  the  Corps  Commanders  in  th« 
following  terms  :  "  If  the  foregoing  cannot  be,  the  army  should  then  be  moved  against 
ike  enemy  behind  the  Rappahannock  at  the  earliest  possible  moment."  But  this  Gen 
eral  McClellan  did  not  do.  He  had  determined  to  move  the  army  to  the  Peninsula, 
and  in  doing  so,  he  took  upon  himself  the  responsibility  of  all  the  results  that  grevr 
•nt  of  his  disobedience  of  orders. 

Yet  you  will  presently  see  him  turning  round  and  with  incredible  effrontery 
charging  bad  faith  and  the  blame  of  his  failures  on  those  he  had  thus  grossly  de 
ceived.  And  from  that  day  to  this  he  and  his  following  have  made  the  withholding 
ef  McDowell's  corps  his  great  grievance  —  the  gravamen  of  all  their  charges  against 
the  Administration  —  the  convenient  pack-horse  on  which  to  place  that  burden  of 
that  will  bear  him  down  to  a  historic  infamy  I 


*A  PICKAXE  AND  A  SPADE,    A  SPADED 

There  is  now,  I  suppose,  not  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  had  the  Army  of  th« 
Potomac  been  simply  allowed  to  walk  on  up  the  Peninsula,  it  would  have  been  abl« 
to  walk  over  all  the  force  which  General  Magruder  had  to  oppose  it.  It  is  now  known 
how  contemptible  that  force  was.  General  Magruder's  official  report*  of  his  opera 
tions  on  the  Peninsula  shows  that  his  whole  army  consisted  of  eleven  thousand 
men  ;  of  these,  six  thousand  were  useless  to  him,  being  placed  in  garrison  at  Glou 
cester  Point,  Mulberry  Island,  etc.  "So  that  it  will  be  seen,"  adds  he,  "  that  th* 
balance  of  the  line,  embracing  a  length  of  thirteen  miles,  was  defended  by  about 
Jive  thousand  men."  What  is  now  a  matter  6f  certainty  was  then  a  matter  of 
ehrewd  conjecture.  General  Wool,  whose  position  at  Fortress  Monroe  gave  him 
«very  possible  information  regarding  the  enemy,  repeatedly  represented  to  General 
McClellan  how  trifling  the  rebel  force  was  and  begged  him  to  push  on  before  the  rebels 
should  have  time  to  concentrate.  Disposing  his  feeble  force  with  admirable  skill, 
moving  it  about  from  point  to  point,  and  putting  forth  the  wiles  and  strategems  of 
war  he  succeeded  in  so  frightening  General  McClellan  that,  after  a  single  reconnois- 
eance,  he  eat  down  to  —  dig.  <-To  my  utter  surprise,"  saj's  General  Magruder,  "he 
permitted  day  after  day  to  elapse  without  an  assault.  In  a  few  days  the  object  of 
his  delny  was  apparent.  In  every  direction,  in  front  of  our  lines,  through  the  in 
tervening  woods,  and  along  the  open  fields,  earthworks  began  to  appear."  Of  simi 
lar  tenor  is  the  conversation  reported  by  Col.  Frernantle,  of  the  Coldstream  Guards, 
who  met  General  Magruder  in  Texas  last  sumuer.f  "He  (Magruder)  told  me,"  he 
•ays,  "  the  different  dodges  he  had  resorted  to,  to  blind  and  deceive  McClellan  as  to 
his  strength  ;  and  he  spoke  of  the  intense  relief  and  amusement  with  which  heat 
length  saw  that  General,  with  his  magnificent  army,  begin  to  break  ground  before 
miserable  earthworks  defended  only  by  8,000  men" 

Grimly  amusing  though  the  retrospect  of  such  a  spectacle  is,  it  involve* 
a  great  deal  that  is  much  too  humiliating  to  permit  our  entirely  appreciating 
it.  Shirking  the  duty  of  moving  on  the  rebels  at  Manassas,  General  McClellan 
sought  the  Peninsula  with  the  express  view  of  making  a  "rapid  and  brilliant"  cam 
paign.  His  first  measure  in  execution  of  this  campaign  is  to  sit  down  before  th« 

*  Confederate  Reports  of  Battles,  page  557.    t  Three  Months  in  the  Southern  States. 


17 

five  thousand  rebels  present  to  dispute  his  progress.  All  that  can  possibly  save  this 
from  being  hereafter  esteemed  a  bit  of  monstrous  burlesque,  is  that  it  is  vouched  for 
by  the  irrefragable  evidence  of  history  I  * 

If  the  defensive  line  which  th«  rebels  had  constructed  across  the  Isthmus  from 
Yorktown  along  the  line  of  the  Warwick,  was  really  a  position  of  the  enormous 
strength  claimed  by  General  McClellan,  I  can  only  say  that  he  should  have  taken 
this  element  into  account  when  he  determined  on  his  plan  of  campaign.  It  is  a 
lame  and  impotant  excuse  for  him  to  put  forth  that  he  did  not,  know  the  rebels  had 
a  fortified  position  on  the  Peninsula,  that  he  was  wholly  ignorant  of  the  nature  of 
the  topography,  that  he  was  not  aware  that  the  Warwick  river  ran  in  the  direction 
it  does,  and  that  he  found  the  roads  in  a  horrible  condition.  He  was  repeatedly 
forewarned  that  he  would  find  fortifications  on  the  Peninsula  jnst  as  well  as  at  Ma- 
nassas ;  but  with  that  extraordinary  levity  of  mind  that  characterizes  him,  he  in 
sisted  on  seeing  all  rose  colored  in  the  distance,  and,  exemplifying  perfectly  the 
Latin  saying,  Omne  ignotnm  pro  magnifico,  the  less  he  knew  of  the  nature  of  the 
theatre  of  war  he  was  about  to  seek  (and  he  after  confessed  it  was  an  unknown  re 
gion  to  him)  the  more  allurements  it  had  for  him. 

But  without  denyifig  that  the  position  which  the  rebels  held  across  the  Isthmus 
W&B  one  naturally  strong,  I  deny  utterly  and  altogether  that  that  it  presented 
anything  which  need  have  been  any  considerable  obstacle  to  the  advance  of  the 
overwhelming  numbers  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  The  line  held  by  the  rebels 
— the  general  line  of  the  Warwick,  which  heads  within  a  mile  of  Yorktown — was 
defended  by  a  series  of  detached  redoubts  connected  by  rifle-pits,  and  it  was  not  less 
than  thirteen  miles  in  extent.  Now,  all  experience  proves  that  a  line  so  extended 
is  only  formidable  when  the  works  are  fully  manned,  and  there  is  present,  beside, 
A  moveable  force,  capable  of  rapid  concentration  at  any  point  the  enemy  may  assail. 
The  very  length  of  such  a  line  becomes  its  weakness  ;  there  must  be  some  point  at 
which  it  can  be  forced;  and  this,  once  done,  the  works  become  a  disadvantage, 
rather  than  a  defence.* 

On  the  point  of  the  absolute  necessity  devolving  upon  McClellan  to  assault  the 
works  at  Yorktown,  the  moment  he  reached  and  reconnoitered  them,  there  is,  in 
deed,  no  room  for  argument.  Any  one  who  will  inspect  the  map  will  see  the  read 
iness  with  which  the  line  of  the  Warwick  might  have  been  forced,  and,  this  once 
done,  Yorktown  was  turned.  And  this  is  the  proper  place  to  mention  an  incident 
touching  the  true  details  of  which  General  McClellan  is  as  reticent  as  he  always  is 
touching  anything  which  in  the  smallest  degree  tells  against  himself.  One  of  th« 
division  commanders  occupying  a  point  where  he  knew  he  could  force  tne  enemy's 
line,  sent  a  portion  of  his  command,  chiefly  Vermont  troops,  to  cross  a  dam  which 
the  rebels  had  constructed,  arid  assault  their  position.  This  they  did,  and  gallant 
ly  advancing  under  heavy  fire  actually  took  possession  of  the  rebel  works.  But 
this  was  all  contrary  to  General  McClellan's  favorite  system  of  regular  approaches, 
and  would  have  proved  thnt  the  President's  recommendation  to  pierce  the  enemy's 
line,  instead  of  being  "simple  folly,"  as  McClellan  pronounced  it,  was  the  highest 
wisdom.  It  must  have  been  for  this  reason — for  there  is  no  other  to  be  found — that 
the  brave  fellows  who  had  been  guilty  of  this  brilliant  irregularity,  were  left  utter 
ly  without  support,  and  were  finally  forced  to  fall  back  with  serious  loss!  I  sup 
pose  there  is  but  one  man  in  the  world  who  will  not  now  admit  that  the  "folly  " 
in  the  siege  of  Yorktown  rested,  as  it  so  often  does,  exclusively  where  the  timidity 
belonged — and  that  man  is  General  McClellan.  And  if  it  will  add  anything  to  the 
completeness  of  this  demonstration  to  say  that  the  rebels  never  expected  to  hold 
Yorktown,  we  have  their  own  testimony  tojthat  effect.  Mugruder  rightly  describe* 
the  impression  General  McClellan's  conduct  produced  when  he  speaks  of  the  "  in 
tense  amusement  and  'delight  with  which  he  at  length  saw  that  genera!  bei?in  to 
break  ground  before  miserable  earthworks  defended  by  a  feeble  force  of  eight  thou 
sand  men." 

But  if  the  rebel  force  was  feeble  at  the  outset  and  not  in  condition  to  offer  any 
serious  resistance  to  an  eve'n  moderately  vigorous  attack,  it  was  quite  certain  that 
it  would  not  long  be  allowed  to  remain  so.  The  enemy,  finding  unexpectedly  that 
they  could  hold  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  in  check  until  a  secondary  defensive 
line  nearer  Richmond  could  be  prepared,  would  have  shown  an  inbecility  which 
they  have  never  displayed,  had  they  not  done  so.  The  high  probability  that  they 

*  Military  history  presents  no  more  formidable  fortified  line"  than  those  of  Meliaigne  and  Bou- 
hain,  and  yet  Marlborough  forced  these,    thongh  defended  by  H  superior  force;  and  if  this  C'> 
be  done  in  the  case  ->f  positions  held  by  a  superior  force,  what  thall  we  say  of  a  line  held 


chain,  and  yet  Marlborough  forced  these,  thongh  defended  by  a  superior  force;  and  if  this  C'>uld 
be  done  in  the  case  ->f  positions  held  by  a  superior  force,  what  thall  we  say  of  a  line  held  by 
five  thousand  against  over  a  hundred  thousand.  The  comparison,  hi  fact,  ia  as  ludicrous  aa  it 


would  be    to  compare    the   one  general  with   the   other— I   mean,  of  course,  a  Marlborougb 
With  a  Mci;lellan. 


18 

would  both  reason  and  act  in  this  way  seems  to  have  been  duly  appreciated  by  the 
President,  who  .communicated  this  impression  to  General  MeClellan  in  mirneroui 
dispatches,  of  which  the  following  of  April  6th,  is  a  sample  :  "  You  now  have  over 
one  hundred  thousand  troops  with  you,  independently  of  General  Wool's  command. 
I  think  you  had  better  break  the  enemy's  lirie'frooi  Yorktown  to  Warwick  river  at 
once.  They  will  probably  use  time  a*  advantageously  you  can."  So  again,  three 
days  afterward:  "  By  delay,  the  enemy  will  relatively  gain  upon  you;  that  is,  he 
will  gain  faster  by  fortifications  and  reinforcements,  than  you  can  by  reinforcements 
alone"  Never  was  utterance  more  prophetic;  for,  says  General  Magruder,  in  his 
official  report:  "Through  the  energetic  action  of  the  (Confederate)  government,  r*- 
inforcements  began  to  pour  in,  and  each  hour  the  Army  of  the  Peninsula  gre* 
stronger  and  stronger  until  anxiety  passed  from  my  mind  as  to  the  result  of  an  attack 
vpon 'us"  With  these  facts,  it  is  submitted  to  the  reader  whether  we  are  not  justi 
fied  in  connecting  by  the  closest  logical  bond  of  antecedent  and  consequent  thia  fa 
tal  delay  and  all  the  disastrous  results  of  the  campaign  on  the  Peninsula? 

At  length,  after  a  mouth  of  delay,  the  rebels,  whether  ashamed  of  themselves  at 
putting  the  grand  Army  of  the  Potomac  to  such  unnecessary  trouble,  or  because  the 
position  of  McDowell'corps  at  Fredericksburg  became  too  serious  a  menace  to  Rich 
mond,  withdrew  from  Yorktown  as  secretly  as  they  had  withdrawn  from  Manassaa. 
General  McClellan  had  comsumed  many  weeks,  including  the  whole  month  of  April, 
in  preparing  to  breach  the  fort  at  Yorktown.  It  is  impossible  to  say  how  many 
weeks  more  he  would  have  gone  on  digging  and  hauling,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  record 
that  he  had  just  sent  a  request  that  the  heavy  siege  guns  in  the  fortifications  for  the 
defence  of  Washington  should  be  taken  out  of  their  works  and  shipped  to  him,  when, 
at  length,  the  day  after  the  withdrawal  of  the  rebels,  he  "  discovered  "  they  had 
gone!  Corning  into  possession  of  the  deserted  position,  he  immedUtely  asked  if  he 
might  inscribe  "Yorktown  "  on  his  banners,  and  telegraphed  a  dispatch  which  he 
has  forgotten  to  reproduce,  to  the  effect  that  he  would  "  push  the  enemy  to  the 
wall."  [  ueail  airily  re:n*rk  that  taU  •'  wall"  was  never  found  ;  and  we  were 
left  to  exclaim  with  Pyramus: 

"Thou  wall!    0,  wall !    O,  sweet  and  lovely  wall, 
(Show  me  thy  chink  to  blink  through  with  mine  eyne." 

We  shall  presently  follow  General  McClellan  in  his  subsequent  movements  on  the 
Penin?uia  ;  but  before  dismissing  the  consideration  of  the  siege  of  Yorktown,  we 
must  remark,  in  a  word,  that  we  find  ourselves  unable  to  accord  to  that  siege  the 
admiration  which  General  McClellan  challenges  for  it.  We  are  requested  to  admire 
the  thirty  or  forty  miles  of  corduroy  road  constructed  by  his  army,  the  miles  of 
trenches  and  rifle  pits  opened,  and  the  huge  batteries  placed,  none  of  which,  by  the 
way,  was  ever  allowed  to  open  its  fire.  But  we  could  admire  the  corduroy  road 
more,  were  it  not,  according  to  General  McClellan's  own  statement,  a  mere  piece  of 
supererogation — the  roads  in  that  region  being  "passable  at  all  seasons  of  the  year." 
We  could  admire  the  colossal  digging- and  delving  more,  could  we  shut,  out  the 
ghastly  vision  of  the  thousands  of  lives  lost  by  the  epidemics  of  th*  region  into 
which  our  army  had  been  led  and  the  useless  servitude  to  which  it  had  been  con 
demned,  or  push  aside  the  spectacle  of  those  brave  fellows  digging  at  once  a  double 
ditch — a  grave  as  well  as  a  trench.  We  could  admire  more  the  profiles  of  his  bas 
tions  and  his  batteries,  did  they  not  irresistibly  present  themselves  to  our  imagina 
tion  as  huge  monuments  of  the  folly  of  a  man  who,  seeking -the  Peninsula  to  exe 
cute  a  strategically  offensive  campaign,  sat  down,  at  the  first  show  of  resistance,  to 
a  feeble  tactical  defensive. 

VIII. 
THE  PENINSULAR  CAMPAIGN. 

It  now  stands  historically  determined  that  at  the  time  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
landed  upon  the  Peninsula,  the  rebel  cause  had  reached  its  lowest  ebb  The  splen 
did  victories  won  by  the  Union  armies  in  the  West — armies  whose  ardor  even  the 
McClellan  policy,  while  it  ruled,  had  not  been  able  to  restrain,  and  which,  when 
once  freed  from  that  incubus,  sprang  forth  into  glorious  activity — had  carried  dis 
comfiture  and  demoralization  to  the  rebel  ranks,  terror  and  dismay  to  the  whole 
population,  arid  fearful  forebodings  to  the  souls  of  the  guilty  leaders. 

And  while  this  was  true  of  the  rebel  cause  and  the  rebel  armies  generally,  these 
influences  were  also  powerfully  felt  by  the  rebel  array  in  Virginia.  It  must 
be  remembered  that  this  was  before  the  passage  even  of  the  first  Conscription  Act, 
and  while  the  rebel  army  was  suffering  from  the  excessively  defective  military  ays- 


19 

•^ 

tern  under  which  the  "  Provisional  Army  "  was  organized.  Its  Winter  at  Manas- 
gas  had  greatly  reduced  it  by  disease  and  expiration  of  the  terra  of  service  of  the 
one  year  troops,  and  there  is  the  best  evidence  to  show  that  it  effected  its  with 
drawal  from  Manassas  and  Centreville  in  a  condition  of  very  great  demoralization. 
Under  these  circumstances,  there  is  hardly  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  that,  had  the 
rebels  been  promptly  followed  up  after  their  retreat  behind  the  Rappahannock,  our 
army  would  have  entered  Richmond  on  the  heels  of  a  routed  and  dissolving  mob, 
and  taken  possession  of  the  Capital  which  the  rebel  leaders  then  expected  to 
abandon. 

In  this  state  of  facts,  the  historian  finds  himself  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
puzzling  problem  of  determining  how  it  happens  that,  in  the  words  of  Gen.  BARNARD, 
(see  Report  of  Engineer  Operations,)  "  the  date  of  the  iniation  of  the  campaign  of 
this  magnificent  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  the  date  of  the  resuscitation  of  the  rebel 
cause,  which  seemed  to  grow  strong  pari  passu  with  the  slow  progress  of  its 
operations?" 

What  the  first  favoring  influence  was,  we  need  be  at  no  loss  to  determine.  The 
unexpected  delay  of  the  whole  month  of  April  before  Yorktown — the  military 
strength  of  which  was  so  ludicrously  inadequate  to  have  arrested  the  march  of  our 
army,  that  it  was  long  before  the  rebels  would  believe  the  evidence  of  their  own 
eyes  that  MCCLKLLAN  had  actually  called  a  halt — gave  the  rebels  ample  time  to 
look  about  them,  to  form  their  plans  and  to  set  on  toot  their  execution.  The  first 
fruit  of  this  was  the  Conscription  Law,  which,  let  it  be  observed,  was  passed  by  the 
Confederate*  Congress  at  Richmond  on  the  16th  day  of  April,  in  the  midst  of 
McCjLELLAN's  tragi-comedy  of  the  spade  before  Yorktown  ;  and  this  was  immediately 
followed  by  the  re  organization  of  the  Confederate  army.  Moreover  the  bitter 
manner  in  which  the  defeats  of  the  West  brought  home  to  the  leaders  the  military 
maxim  that  in  attempting  to  cover  everything  one  covers  nothing,  had  taught 
them  the  policy  of  concentration,  and  they  speedily  began  its  application  in  Vir 
ginia. 

The  effect  of  these  measures  was,  of  course,  not  immediate  ;  but  Gen.  MCCLELLAV 
delayed  long  enough  at  various  points  to  permit  their  full  development.  Faulty  in 
strategy  though  the  transfer  of  the  army  to  the  Peninsula  must  be  considered 
— faulty  as  involving  a  necessary  division  of  force  and  an  enormous  waste  of  time, 
without  eliminating  or  diminishing  any  of  the  difficulties  of  the  direct  advance,  but, 
on  the  contrary  exaggerating  them,  all — nevertheless,  considering  the  low  ebb  to 
which  the  rebel  fortunes  had  sunk,  and  the  weak  and  demoralized  condition  of  the 
rebel  army  in  Virginia,  at  the  initiation  of  the  campaign  on  the  Peninsula,  we  are 
warranted  by  the  facts  in  saying  that  a  vigorous  advance  fron.  Fortress  Monroe 
would  have  brought  the  Union  army  into  position  to  fight  a  battle  for  the  posses 
sion  of  Richmond,  with  the  chances  of  success  decid-dly  on  our  side.  This  might 
again  have  been  possible,  a  month  later,  after  the  battle  of  Williarnsburg.  It  might 
still  have  been  possible  another  month  later  on  the  heels  of  Fair  Oaks.  But  it  was 
reserved  for  Gen.  MCCLELLAN,  by  a  display  of  timidity  and  indisposition  to  act 
amounting  absolutely  to  disease,  to  weary  and  wear  out  the  patience  of  Fortune 
till  at  length  she  ceased  to  present  any  more  golden  opportunities.  What  was  pos 
sible  to  us  in  April,  was  no  longer  possible  in  August,  and  the  force  which,  as  we 
now  know,  had  abandoned  Yorktown  without  plans  of  future  notion,  and  which  was 
driven  out  of  Williamsburg,  was  able  three  months  afterwards — thanks  to 
MCCLELLAN'S  considerate  delays — to  assume  the  offensive  and  throw  his  army  pell- 
mell  back  in  disastrous  retreat  on  the  James, 

But  I  anticipate.  On  the  "discovery"  of  the  withdrawal  of  the  rebels  on.  the 
morning  of  the  6th  of  May,  Gen.  STONEMAN,  with  his  cavalry  Corps  and  four  batte 
ries  of  horse  artillery,  was  sent  in  pursuit.  He  was  followed  by  HOOKER'S  Division 
of  HEINTZELMAN'S  Corps.  Subsequently  the  divisions  of  KEARNEY,  COUCH,  and  CASEY 
(of  SUMNER'S  Corps)  were  sent  forward.  STONEMAN  came  up  with  the  enemy's  rear 
guard  at  Williamsburg,  where  a  defensive  line  had  been  thrown  up,  which,  how 
ever,  it  is  evident,  JOHNSTON  was  not  minded  to  hold,  since  his  whole  army  had 
passed  beyond  Williamsburg.  It  was  therefore,  simply  for  the  purpose  of  securing 
the  safe  withdrawal  of  the  trains  that  the  rebel  rear  turned  sharply  on  STONEMAN  at 
Williamsburg;  and,  it  being  found  that  Union  infantry  supports  were  coming  up, 
LONGSTREET'S  division  was  actually  ordered  back  to  that  point.  It  was  between  his 
command  and  the  divisions  of  SUMNER'S  and  HEINTZKLMAN'S  corps  that,  on  the  fol 
lowing  day,  the  crude,  ill-planned,  unnecessary,  but,  for  us,  bloody  encounter,  which 
figures  in  history  as  the  battle  of  Williamsburg,  took  place. 

Gen.  MCCLELLAN,  in  his  Report,  skims  this  affair  in  a  few  vague  touches — a  fact 
that  might  be  accounted  for  from  the  circumstances  that,  not  having  been  person- 


20 

ally  present  at  this  his  first  battle,  he  could  know  nothing  of  it  from  his  own  know 
ledge,  were  it  not  for  the  other  circumstance,  that  there  are  on  record  dispatches 
revealing,  on  the  part  of  Gen.  MCCLELLAN,  motives  and  moods  of  mind  totally  at 
variance  with  the  representations  of  his  Report.  I  do  not  affirm  that  the  fact  of 
their  being  extremely  damaging  to  his  military  pretensions  could  have  anothing  to 
do  with  their  omission.  I  simply  submit  to  the  consideration  of  candid  minds  to 
determine  what  is  the  real  motive  of  a  historical  deficit  otherwise  so  unaccount 
able. 

Gen.  MeCLKLLAN  does  not  mention,  when  speaking  of  the  column  he  "immediate 
ly  "  sent  in  pursuit  of  the  enemy,  that,  had  he  been  left  to  the  motions  of  his  own 
hesitating  and  cautious  spirit,  no  column  ever  would  had  been  sent  in  pursuit  atalL 
It  was  only  after  the  repeated  and  united  solicitations  of  several  of  the  commanders 
had  at  length  succeeded  iu  elevating  his  mettle  up  to  the  point  of  action,  that  th« 
consented  to  a  force  being  sent  in  pursuit,  the  battle  of  Williamsburg. 

When,  too,  it  was  sent,  it  was  under  circumstances  that  made  the  horrible  confusion 
and  disorder  that  reigned  at  Williamsburg  perfectly  inevitable. 

While  Gen.  MCCLELLAN  had  remained  behind  at  Yorktown,  for  the  purpose,  as 
he  says,  of  "completing  the  preparations  forthe  departure  of  Gen.  FRANKLIN'S  and 
other  troops  to  West  Point  by  water" —  a  task  which,  under  the  circumstances, 
that  is,  considering  that  Gen.  FRANLIN'S  Division  had  remained  on  shipboard 
ever  since  it  arrived,  for  the  very  good  reason  that,  spite  of  Gen.  MCCLELLAN'I 
call*  for  reinforcements,  he  could  not  find  room  on  the  Peninsula  to  place  what 
he  had,  and  that  FRANKLIN'S  movement  was  a  mere  diversion  and  not  the  main 
business  on  hand,  might  surely  have1  been  entrusted  to  the  General  who  was  to 
(jomrnand  it.  About  noon  cf  Monday  the  Prince  DE  JOINVILLE  and  Gen.  SPRAGUB 
went  dot?n  to  Yorktown,  to  induce  Gen.  MCCLELLAN  to  come  up  and  take  charge  of 
operations  which  were  going  so  badly  for  us.  When  told  the  condition  of  affairs  in 
front,  Gen.  MCCLELLAN  remarked  that  he  had  supposed  "those  in  front  could  at 
tend  to  that  little  matter."  After  some  time,  however,  he  started  from  Yorktown, 
reached  the  vicinity  of  Williamsburg,  just  at  the  close  of  the  battle,  and  for  th« 
first  time  came  face  to  face  with  the  actual  aspect  of  tha  problem  there  presented. 

Now,  if  one  looks  into  Gen.  McCiellan's  so  called  "Report,"  with  a  view  to  dis 
cover  what  purpose  he  then  and  there  formed  in  face  of  the  state  of  facts  at  Wil- 
liarasburg,  he  will  look  in  vain.  But  it  happens  that  there  are  dispatches  in  exis^ 
tence  which  do  photograph  Gen.  McCiellan's  mind  at  this  period,  and  as  it  is  my 
aim  to  pierce  to  the  historical  truth  ui.derl  »ing  the  veneer  which  he  has  spread  over 
these  transactions,  I  will  tax  the  patience  of  the  reader  so  far  as  to  follow  with  some 
minuteness  the  dissection  of  one  of  Gen.  McCiellan's  unpublished  telegrams. 

Whan,  toward  nightfall,  Gen.  McClellan  arrived  before  Williamsburg.  the  enemy 
still  held  his  p<  sition  there.  The  troops  in  the  front  had  been  fighting  within 
hearing  of  McClellan  during  the  entire  day,  but  not  within  his  personal  supervision, 
and  he  was,  for  the  most  part,  ignorant  of  the  true  state  of  affairs.  He  thought 
that  the  enemy  had  a  securely  intrenched  position  at  Williamsburg,  and  had  thut 
opposed  his  further  advance  at  that  time  and  he  determined  to'lose  time  before 
Williamsburg,  just  as  he  had  done  at  Yorktown  This  is  snth'cieutly  apparent  from 
the  following  telegram  of  May  6,  which,  notwithstanding  its  great  historical  impor 
tance,  Gen.  AfeClellan  has  not  eeen  fit  to  re-produce: 

BIVOUAC  IN  FBONT  OF  WILT.IAMSBTTROH,  ) 
May  5-10  P.  M.      f 

After  arranging  for  movement  up  York  river,  I  vas  urgently  sent  for  here.  I  find  Joe  Johnston 
in  front  of  me  in  strong  force— probably  greater,  a  good  deal,  than  my  own,  and  very  strongly 
intrenched.  Hancock  has  taken  two  redoubts,  and  repulsed  i  arly's  brigade  by  a  real  charge  of  the 
bayonet,  taking  1  colonel  and  150  prisoners,  killing  at  least  two  colonels  and  as  many  lieutenant- 
colonels,  and  many  privates.  His  conduct  was  brilliant  in  the  extreme  I  do  not  know  our  exact 
loss,  but  fear  Hooker  has  lost  considerably  on  our  le:t  Ilea>nfrom  pr  son-ers  that  they  intend 
disputing  ev  ry  x  ep  to  Richmond  I  shall  run  thf,  rink  of  at  le«*t  holding  them  in  check  her*, 
while  I  resume,  the  original  plan  Afy  entire  force  t.s,  undoubtedly,  connidera  ly  inferior  to  tlutt 
qfthe  rebels,  who  titill  fight  well ;  but  I  will  do  all  I  can  with  the  force  at  my  disposal. 

o.  B.  MCCLELLAN. 

Major  General  Commanding^ 
Hon.  EDWIN  M.  STANTON,  Secretary  of  War. 

This  telegram  certainly  contains  some  very  extraordinary  features,  remarkably 
illustrative  of  the  peculiar  genius  of  General  McClellan. 

He  had  been  "urgently  sent  for"  as  if  heavy  firing  in  his  front  during  the  day 
had  not  been  urgently  calling  him  forward  from  the  moment  he  heard  it,  without 
waiting  for  a  summons  by  special  messengers. 

Hancock  had  made  a  "real  charge  with  the  bayonet,"  as  if  to  charge  the  enemy 
with  t,he  bayonet  was  something  surprising  to  the  last  degree,  and  not  to  be  looked 
for  from  any  portion  of  his  army. 


21 

He  "  fears  that  Hooker  has  lost  considerably,"  because  he  knew,  but  knew  very 
little  more,  that  Hooker  had  been  under  heavy  fire  during  several  hours  of  the  day, 
while  he  was  superintending  the  movement  of  Franklin's  division  (of  McDowell's 
corps)  up  York  river. 

Having  found  his  advance  checked  at  Williampburg,  he  very  gravely  informs  the 
Secretary  of  War  that  he  "  will  run  the  risk  of  at  least  holding  them  in  check,'1  while 
what?  "Why,  being  checked  himself,  he  will  run  the  risk  of  holding  the  enemy  in 
check  "while  he  resumes  his  original  plan" — an  indefinite  expression,  which  may 
refer  to  either  of  two  plans,  that  of  turning  Gloucester,  or  that  of  employing  regu 
lar  eiege  operations,  such  as  he  had  employed  before  Yorktown.* 

His  entire  force  he  represents  as  "  undoubtedly  considerably  inferior  to  that  of 
the  rebels— a  second  allusion  in  the  same  telegram  to  an  opinion  which  all  the  cir 
cumstances,  even  at  the  time,  showed  to  be  unfounded,  the  enemy  having  just  then 
precipitately  fled  from  Yorktown  and  having  been  driven  immediately  afterward 
by  "  a  real  charge  with  the  bayonet" — certainly  no  signs  of  superiority  on  their 
part. 

He  says  that  the  enemy  "still  fight  well,  although  the  fighting  at  Williamsburgh, 
that  very  day,  was  the  first  that  his  army  had  seriously  encountered  since  General 
McClellan  had  been  in  command  of  it. 

And,  finally,  he  concludes  the  telegram  by  an  evident  allusion  to  the  McDowell 
subject  of  complaint,  assuring  the  Secretary  of  War  that  he  "  will  do  all  he  can  with 
the  force  at  his  disposal" — language  indicating  very  great,  if  not  extreme,  despond 
ency,  fearfully  foreboding  the  disasters  of  a  campaign  just  commenced. 

•  This  telegram  was  written  at   10  o'clock  on    the  evening  of  the   5t,h  of  May,  in 
which  we  see,  as  just  intimated,  that  General  McClellan  speaks  of  holding  the  enemy 
in  check  at  Wiliiamsburgh  ;   while,  in  fact,  the  enemy,  as  he  then  thought,  had  not 
only  checked  his  advance,  but  was  in  position  behind  "strong  intrenchments,"  as  he 
calls  them,  to  hold  him  in  check  ;  and  he  deliberately  reports  his  purpose  of  resum 
ing  his  original  plan,  the  execution  of  which  -would  have  required  time,  instead  of 
breaking  through  the  enemy's  lines. 

But  what  was  the  true  state  of  the  case  ?  This  maybe  seen  by  the  telegram 
of  the  next  morning,  dated  at  Williamsburgh,  and  addressed  to  the  Secretary  of 
War. 

HBADQTTABTKRS  ARMY  OF  POTOMAC,  ) 
WILLIAMSBUKG,  Va  ,  May  6.     ) 

I  have  the  pleasure  to  announce  the  occupation  of  this  place  as  thf  result  of  the  hard-fought  ac 
tion  of  yesterday.  The  effect  of  Hancock's  brilliant  engagement  yesterday  atternoon  WHS  to  turn  the 
lelt  oT  thi'ir  Hue  of  works  He  was  strongly  reinforced,  and  the  enemy  abandoned  the  entire  posi 
tion  during  ;he  night,  leaving  all  his  sick  and  wounded  in  our  hands  The  victory  is  complete. 

*  *  *     Am  I  authorized  to  follow  the  example  ot  other  generals,  and  direct  the  names 
of  battles  to  be  placed  on  the  colors  of  regiments  ?    "We  have  other  battles  to  fight  before  reaching 
Richmond. 

G,  B.  McOLELLAN, 
Major  General  Commanding. 

At  ten  o'clock  during  the  night  of  the  5th  of  May,  General  McClellan  formally  re 
ports  that  he  will  hold  the  enemy  in  check,  when,  in  fact,  his  real  opinion  was  that 
the  enemy  held  him  in  check  ;  and  he  quite  distinctly  declares  his  purpose  of  resort 
ing  to  measures  requiring  tune  to  obtain  possession  of  Williamsburgh,  when  at  the 
moment  of  writing  th«tt  dispatch  General  Hancock,  by  acting  in  the  spirit  of  the 
President's  recommendation  to  break  the  enemy's  lines,  but  without  specific  instruc 
tions  from  General  McClellan,  had  turned  their  position,  and  had  actually  com 
passed  what  General  McClellan  despaired  of  accomplishing,  except  by  slow  opera 
tions.  On  the  morning  of  the  6th  of  May  General  McClellan,  passing  suddenly  from 
a  state  of  extreme  despondency,  reports  exultingly  that  the  victory  of  the  5th  of 
May  "  is  complete." 

In  the  state  of  despondency  he  exaggerates  the  strength  of  the  enemy,  plainly  an 
excuse  for  his  delay  before  Yorktown,  and  sets  it  down  as  "  considerably  greater 
than  his  own  ;"  but^says  he  will  do  all  he  can  with  the  force  at  his  disposal — when 
the  facts  show  that  the  enemy  abandoned  Yorktown  without  waiting  for  an  attack, 
and  were  driven  out  of  Williamsburgh  by  a  brilliant  assault  made  by  troops  acting 
under  an  inspiration,  which  General  McClellan's  extreme  "caution"  could  not  alto 
gether  restrain. 

It  is  by  precisely  such  manipulation   as  this — that  is,  by  constantly  putting  aa 

*2Lnd  here  it  may  be  observed,  that  while  he  was  employed  before  Yorktown,  the  enemy  con 
structed  his  line  of  defence  six  or  eiuht  miles  in  the  rear,  where  General  McClellan  proposed  to 
consume  more  time,  giving  the  enemy  h-isure  for  the  construction  ot  anwiher  line  still  further  in  the 
rear,  as  if  he  intended  to  aid  the  enemy  in  disputing  "  every  step  to  Kichmond  ;''  the  purpose  of 
the  enemy,  according  to  information  received  Irom  "  prisoners." 


origiaal  motives  what  were  really  afterthoughts,  and  by  an  adroit  use  of  the  sup- 
pressio  veri — that  General  McOlellan  endeavors  to  give  a  false  coloring  to  actions 
and  events.  But  unfortunately  for  the  success  of  this  operation,  there  are  too  many 
"damned  spots"  that  will  not  "out"  for  all  his  washing. 

Of  these  there  is  now  another  that  must  be  set  forth. 

When  General  McOlellan,  after  the  battle  of  Williamsburgh  took  up  his  march  by 
the  line  of  the  York  river,  and  thence  along  the  railroad  to  the  Chickahorniny,  in 
stead  of  striking  across  obliquely  to  the  James,  and  using  that  river  as  his  line  of 
supplies — a  course  rendered  possible  by  the  destruction  of  the  Merrimac — we  are, 
according  to  his  Report,  to  believe  that  it  was  with  extreme  reluctance  that  he 
adopted  this  plan,  to  which  he  attempts  to  make  it  appear  that  he  was  reduced  by 
the  intermeddling  of  the  authorities  at  Washington. 

In  response  to  General  McClellan's  constant  calls  for  reinforcements  it  was  deter 
mined  that  McDowell's  corps,  at  Fredericksburgh,  should  move  overland  to  make  a 
junction  either  north  or  south  of  the  Pamunkey,  with  the  right  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  and  co  operate  in  the  reduction  of  Richmond. 

Informed  of  this  determination  by  a  dispatch  from  the  Secretary  of  War,  under 
date  of  May  18,  General  McClellaii  goes  off  in  a  fit  of  well  simulated  rage,  and  de 
clares  that  this  determination,  and  the  necessity  it  imposed  of  taking  the  line  of  the 
York  river,  destroyed  all  his  plans.  "  This  order,"  he  says,  "  rendered  it  impossible 
for  me  to  use  the  James  river  as  a  line  of  operations,  and  forced  me  to  establish  our 
depots  on  the  Pamunkey  and  to  approach  Richmond  from  the  north.  *  * 
*  The  land  movement  obliged  me  to  expose  my  right  in  order  to  secure  the  func 
tion  ;  and  as  the  order  for  General  McDowell's  march  was  soon  countermanded,  I 
incurred  great  risk,  of  which  the  enemy  finally  took  advantage  and  frustrated  the 
plan  of  campaign" 

Now,  is  General  McClellan  so  short  of  memory,  or  is  he  purposely  guilty  of  so 
shameless  an'inconsistency,  that  he  dares  to  make  such  an  assertion  as  this,  when 
he  is  himself  on  record,  under  solemn?  oath,  in  a  sense  directly  the  reverse  ? 

In  his  testimony  before  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War,  General  Mc 
Clellan  in  reply  to  the  specific  questions — "  Could  not  the  advance  on  Richmond 
from  Williamsburgh  have  been  made  with  better  prospect  of  success  by  the  James 
river  than  by  the  route  pursued,  and  what  were  the  reasons  for  taking  the  route  adop 
ted  !" — stated  as  follows  : 

"I  do  not  think  that  the  navy  at  that  time  was  in  a  condition  to  make  the  line  of  the  James 
river  perfectly  secure  for  our  supplies.  The  line  of  the  Pamunkey  offered  greater  advantages  in 
that  re-pect.  The  place  was  in  a  better  position  to  effect  a  junction  with  any  troop*  that  might 
move  from  Washington  on  th«  Frederickxburgh  linf..  I  remember  that  the  iita  of  moving  on 
the  James  river  was  seriously  discussed  at  that  time.  But  the  eondusion  was  arrived  at  ihutt 
under  the  circumstances  then  existing,  the  rvute  actually  followed  was  the  best.'1'1 

I  leave  to  others  the  task  of  harmonizing  these  "  points  of  mighty  opposites," 
and  of  determining  which  is  original  motive  and  which  afterthought.  If  they  can 
not  be  harmonized,  I  leave  the  reader  to  stamp  with -its  fitting  characterization 
this  assertion  of  General  McClellan's. 

But  the  truth  of  history  requires  me  to  go  farther,  and  to  point  out  that  it  was  not 
at  Williamsburgh  but  at  Roper's  church,  whei*e  the  army  was,  ten  days  previously, 
that  it  was  necessary  to  decide  whether  he  would  there  cross  the  Chickahominy 
(undefended)  and  approach  the  James  river,  (then  open  to  us  by  the  destruction  of 
the  Merrimac,}  or  continue  on  the  Williamsburgh  road  toward  Richmond.  The  de 
cision  was  made  then  and  there,  and  the  decision  was  to  move  by  the  York  and 
Pamunkey.  So  that  so  far  from  its  being  true,  as  claimed  by  General  McClellan — 
that  the  dispatch  of  the  Secretary  of  War  ''  ordering"  him  to  connect  by  land  with 
McDowell,  obliged  him  to  renounce  a  route  by  which,  as  he  would  now  lead  us  to 
believe,  he  could  have  taken  Richmond,  the  truth  is  that  the  choice  of  route  was 
voluntarily  made  by  General  McClellan  ten  days  before-  this  order  he  quotes  was  given, 
and  yet  he  has  in  his  report  the  astounding  assurance  to  complain  of  the  order  in 
question  as  subjecting  him  to  "  great  risks,"  of  which  the  enemy  finally  "  took  ad 
vantage"  and  "frustrated  ''the  plan  of  campaign!" 

What  the  enemy  took  advantage  of — and  what  he  would  have  been  a  fool  had  he 
not  taken  advantage  of — was  Gen.  McClellan's  own  ill  judged  scheme  of  operations, 
by  which  he  gave  the  Rebels  an  interior  position  between  himself  and  the  force 
covering  Washington.  Just  as  Gen.  McDowell  was  about  to  start  from  Frelericks- 
burg,  with  a  reinforcement  of  forty  thousand  men,  came  the  news  of  Jackson's  raid 
up  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  and  Gen.  McDowell  was  ordered  by  the  Presid  nt  to 
send  first  one  division,  then  another,  and  then  his  whole  force,  to  follow  Jackson  — 
a  request  which  is  evident  from  Gen.  McDowell's  dispatches,  he  complied  with  with 


23 

• 

extreme  reluctance,  as  it,  for  the  time  being,  diverted  him  from  his  proposed  march 
to  joia  McCl«-llan,  which  he  had  extremely  at  heart. 

Thus  early  was  the  order  detaining  McDowell's  corps  to  cover  Washington  fully 
justified !  This,  as  well  as  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  are  fully  set  forth  in  a 
dispatch  from  the  President,  under  date  of  May  25,  in  which,  after  giving  the  details 
of  Jackson's  movement  and  the  dispositions  that  had  been  made  in  consequence,  hfi 
concludes  as  follows: 

'•'If  Me  Dnw  ell's  force  wa*  now  'beyond  our  rea<'h,  ice  should  Z»«  utterly  helpless.  Apprehension 
of  something  like,  this,  and  no  unwillingness  to  sustain  you,  has  always  been  my  reason 
for  withholding  McDowell's  force  from  you.  Please  understand  tfiis,  and  do  the  best  you  oan 
with  the  force  you  have." 

I  submit  if  this  language  does  not  display,  on  the  part  of  the  President,  a  temper 
worthy  the  name  of  sublime,  especially  when  we  consider  it  was  addressed  to 
the  man  who,  of  ail  others,  had  most  tried  his  patience — the  man  whose  conduction 
numberless  occasions,  had  deserved  his  severest  displeasure — the  man  to  whom  the 
President  had  conceded  unlimited  means  for  preparing  one  of  the  most  powerful 
armies  ever  raised  in  any  country — the  man  who,  after  all,  evaded  by  an  attempted 
artifice,  the  orders  of  his  constitutional  chief,  thereby  exposing  the  capital  ot  the 
nation  to  be  sacked  by  the  enemy,  and  exposing  also  his  really  grand  army  to  defeat 
and  danger  of  imminent  destruction? 

The  countermanding  of  the  order  given  to  McDowell,  gave  McClellan  what  waa 
far  more  valuable  to  him  than  the  actual  reinforcements  which  that  General  would 
have  brought — to  wit,  an  excuse,  or  the  semblance  of  an  excuse  for  further  delays. 
For  a  long  time  he  and  his  friends  were  able  to  saddle  on  that  detention  all  the 
blame  of  his  failures;  but  this  shallow  trick  has  ceased  to  be  possible  since  the 
publication  of  the  documents  in  the  case;  and  I  may  add  that  it  has  ceased  to  be 
possible  since  the  publication  of  Gen.  McClellan's  own  report.  ' 

Gen.  McClellan  states  that  "the  information  that  McDowell's  corps  would  march 
from  Fredricksburgh  on  the  following  Monday,  (the  26th,)  and  that  he  would  be 
under  my  command,  was  cheering  news,  and  I  now  felt  that  we  would  on  his  arrival 
be  sufficiently  strong  to  overpower  the  large  army  confronting  MS."  This  is  simulated 
joy  and  had  no  being  in  the  bosom  of  Gen.  McClellan  at  the  time.  The  fact  is  Gen. 
McCK-llan  did  not  wish  Gen.  McDowell  *to  join  him  by  an  overland  march;  he 
wished  him  to  corne  by  water  on  his  rear,  and  stated  at  the  time  that  he  would 
rather  not  have  him  at  all  than  have  him  come  overland!  This  fact  is  abundantly 

Thus,  under  date  of 
join  me  overland  in 

time  fur  the  coming  battle"  (One  would  suppose  from  this  that  he  was  going  to 
fight  a  battle  in  ten  minutes.)  But  if  he  did  not  think  McDowell  would  be  able  to 
join  him  ''in  time"  bv  an  overland  march  of  fifty  miles,  (an  easy  three  or  four 
days'  march,)  how  co.  i  he  expect  him  to  join  him  in  time  by  the  water  route, 
when,  according  to  his  experience,  the  transit  could  not  have  been  accomplished 
short  of  a  fortnight?  This  is  iterated  and  reiterated  day  after  day,  and  finally,  in 
a  dispatch,  under  date  of  June  14,  he  says,  with  still  greater  emphasis: 

"  It  ought  to  be  distinctly  understood  that  McDowell  and  his  troops  are  completely  under  my 
eontro!.  I  received  a  telegraph  from  him  requesting  that  McCall's  Division  might  be  placed  so 
aa  to  join  him  immediately  on  his  arrival,  i  hat  request  does  not  breathe  the  proper  spirit. — 
Whatever  troops  come  to  me  must  be  so  disposed  of  HP  to  do  the  most  good .  Id.  not  t'eel  feel  that, 
in  such  circumstances  as  those  in  which  I  am  now  placed,  Gen.  McDowell  should  wish  the 
general  interest  to  be  sacrificed  for  the  purpose  of  increasing  his  command.  If  I  cannot  fully 
control  a  I  his  troops,  I  want  none  of  them,  but  would  prefer  to  fight  the  battle  with  what  I 
?»ave,  and  let  others  be  responsible  for  the  results." 

Now,  speaking  of  what  does  and,  what  does  not  "  breathe  the  proper  spirit,"  I 
would  like  to  ask  whether  this  astounding  declaration  of  Gen.  McClellan  "breathes" 
exactly  the  "  proper  spirit?"  According  to  his  own  repeated  declarations,  he  was 
in  a  position  in  which  reinforcements  were  absolutely  essential,  and  yet  he  prefer* 
not  to  have  them  at  all,  unless  he  can  have  them  by  a  route,  coming  by  which  they 
would  have  required  thrice  the  length  of  time,  and  by  which  they  would  also  have  been 
put  out  of  the  possibility  of  offering  any  protection  to  the  threatened  Capital  of  the 
nation.  The  only  advantage  his  plan  presented  is  that  it  would  have  enabled  him 
to  break  up  McDowell's  divisions  as  they  arrived,  and  assign  them  to  the  commands 
of  his  own  favorites,  and  rid  him  of  the  man  whom  he  had  come  to  regard  with  the 
green  eye  of  jealousy.  I  submit  to  the  candid  reader  to  determine  whether  Gen. 
McClellan  is  in  a  situation  to  throw  himself  back  on  his  injured  innocence,  and 
claim  for  himself  and  his  conduct  such  pure  and  elevated  and  unselfish  and  patriotic 
motives,  or  whether  all  these  claims  are  not  the  most  hollow  and  unmitigated 
pretence. 


r u*/ w j    rev*  /tu-fc  /t&y/c.  t&i   ttt-c-    i/t>u/i>  /tuuo   /itst/t,    wuto    wcit-M/mi        j.iiio 

proven  by  numerous  dispatches,  published  and  unpublished.     1 
May  21,  he  writes:    "  I  fear  there  is  little  hope  McDowell  can  j( 


24: 

Of  events  on  the  Chickahominy,  so  damning  to  McClellan,  BO  humiliating  to 
the  whole  country,  there  is  neither  the  space  nor  the  patience  here  to  fpeak.* — 
Two  decisive  battles  were  fought  on  the  Chickahominy — Fair  Oaks  and  Gained 
Mill.  They  were  not  battles  of 'McClellan's  seeking — they  were  brought  on  by  the 
rebels,  and  we  are  thus  presented  with  the  odd  spectacle  of  a  General  seeking  a 
special  theatre  of  war  for  the  purposeof  waking  not  only  an  offensive,  but  a  "  rapid  " 
and  "brilliant"  movement,  compelled  each  time  he  met  the  enemy  to  fight  on  the 
defensive.  We  have  the  further  spectacle  of  a  man  who  was  constantly  clamoring 
for  reinforcements,  fighting  his  two  chief  battles,  the  first  with  one  half ,  the  second 
with  less  than  one  third  his  force  I 

To  the  last  we  find  him  persisting  in  the  demand  for  more  troops — to  the  last 
we  find  him  the  man  who  was  ready  to 

"Drink  up  Esile,  eat  a  crocodile," 

doing  nothing  with  what  he  had.  "  If  at  this  instant "  says  he,  the  day  after  the 
battle  of  Games'  Mill,  "  I  could  dispose  of  ten  thousand  fresh  men,  I  could  gain  the 
victory  to-morrow  " — a  statement  to  which  we  might  reply  that,  had  he  not  allowed 
Porter's  corps  to  be  slaughtered  the  day  before,  he  would  have  had  the  ten  thousand 
he  there  lost.  But  it  is  very  remarkable  that,  with  an  enemy  "two  hundred 
thousand"  strong,  and  behind  "strong  entrenchments,"  he  should  have  deemed 
himself  capable  of  "gaining  the  victory"  with  a  feeble  reinforcement  of  ten  thousand 
men.  which  would  have  been  no  more  than  he  had  during  all  the  time  he  did  not 
**  gain  a  victory."  In  fact,  his  victories  on  pap^r  and  in  hypothesis,  are  part  of  the 
wonderful  phenomena  of  Gen.  McClellan's  character. 

Having  lost  his  base,  and  the  enemy  being  planted  across  his  communications,  it 
only  remained  for  Gen.  McClellan  to  beat  a  retreat  to  the  James  River.  This  act 
he  dignified  at  the  time  by  the  euphenism  of  "  change  of  base  " — a  phrase  which 
has  since  then  acquired  a  ludicrous  meaning  it  will  long  to  lose. 

The  retreat  to  the  James,  considering  the  bulk  of  the  enemy  was  on  the  left  bank 
of  the  Chickahominy  and  a  long  march  off,  was  not  difficult.  But,  notwithstanding 
this  fact,  and  that  the  troops  were  put  in  the  most  obvious  positions,  and  that  in 
no  case  was  Gen.  McClellan  present  at  any  of  the  engagements  of  the  4>  seven  days' 
fight  "this  movement  has  been  claimed  as  a  master  piece  of  strategy — compara 
ble,  say  his  admirers,  only  to  Moreau's  retreat  through  the  Black  Forest.  And  I 
dare  say  that  the  credit  in  th~e  one  case  is  about  as  just  as  in  the  other;  for  Napoleon 
proclaims  that  Moivau's  retreat  was  "the  greatest  blunder  he  ever  committed." — 
"  As  the  Directory,"  adds  he,  "  could  not  give  Moreau  credit  for  a  victory,  they  did 
for  a  retreat,  which  they  caused  to  be  extolled  in  the  highest  terms ;  but,  instead  of 
credit,  Moreau  merited  the  greatest  censure  and  disgrace  for  it."  I  leave  the 
parallel  to  the  reader's  own  apprehension. 

In  all  the  battles  during  this  retrograde  movement,  we  have  the  same  utter  want 
of  he«d — Gen  McClellan  in  each  ca?e  being  absent  getting  a  fresh  position  to  fall 
back  upon.  This  is  the  first  time  that  we  have  known  that  it  is  the  first  and  highest 
duty  uf  a  Commanding  General  to  reconnoitre  positions  for  a  retreat.  "The  Corps 
Commandt  rs,"  says  Gen.  Heintzleman,  in  his  testimony  before  the  Committee  on  the 
Conduct  of  the  War,  "fought  their  troops  according  to  their  own  ideas.  We  helped 
each  other.  If  anybody  asked  for  reinforcements,  I  sent  them?  if  I  wanted  rein 
forcements,  F  sent  to  others.  He  [McClellan]  was  the  most  extraordinary  man  I 
ever  saw  I  do  not  see  how  any  man  could  leave  so  much  to  others,  and  be  so  confident 
that  enerythiiig  would  go  just  right"  Even  at  the  last  of  the  series  of  battles,  when 
a  defeat  would  have  thrown  his  army  into  the  James  River,  at  Malvern,  we  find 
him,  with  the  exception  of  a  brief  period  previous  to  and  at  the  end  of  the  fitrht, 
away  "on  board  a  gunboat,"  and  this,  notwithstanding  the  admitted  fact  that  the 
innate  valor  of  our  troops  gave  the  enemy  so  decided  a  repulse  that,  if  vigorously 
followed  up,  they  might  even  then  have  been  followed  up  into  Richmond. 

So  enkls  the  story  of  the  strange,  eventful  campaign  on  the  Peninsula — a  campaign 
which,  though  ill-planned,  was  worse  executed,  and  in  which  the  utter  incapacity 
of  the  Commanding  General  to  take  advantage  of  even  such  opportunities  as  fortune 
threw  in  his  way,  was  most  signally  demonstrated.  Gen.  McClellan  did  not  bring 
back  with  him  such  an  army  as  he  had  taketo  away.  He  brought  back  an  army 
demoralized,  worn  down  by  useless  toil,  reduced  by  sickness,  almost  unmatched  in 
the  annals  of  war.  He  found  the  rebel  cause  at  the  lowest  ebb,  and  the  rebel  army 


*  A  full  criticism  of  the  whole  of  McClellan's  military  conduct  on  the  peninsula  will  be  found 
In  the  series  of  articles  in  the  N.  Y.  Times,  reviewing  McClellan's  Report,  by  the  present  writer. 


25 

demoralized  and  dispirited.     He  left  one  in  the  flood-tide  of  success,  the  morale  of 
the  other  restored  by  the  prestige»of  great  victories. 

IX. 

HOW  POPE  GOT  OUT  OF  HI3  "SCR APR" 

If  the  army  had  sustained  itself  nobly  throughout  the  Bad  campaign  on  the  Pen 
insula,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  so  much  fruitless  toil  and  so  much  disaster  had 
impaired  its  morale,, w\\\\e  the  looses  in  battle  and  the  epidemics  of  the  region  had 
greatly  thinned  Us  ranks.  It  therefore  became  a  serious  question  when  the  army 
arrived  at  Harrison's  Landing  whether  it  should  be  allowed  to  remain  or  be  brought 
away.*  At  first  there  seems  to  have  been  no  other  intention  than  to  reinforce  McClel- 
lari  and  let  him  try  it  once  again.  He  had  promised  if  furnished  with  twenty  thou 
sand  men  to  assume  the  offensive  and  attempt  a  fresh  advance  towards  Richmond. 
Accordingly  Shield's  division  was  sent  him  and  other  troops  were  about  to  be  forward 
ed  wh^n  he  put  up  his  request  to  50,000  men,  and  finally  demanded  reii  forcemenU 
"rather  much  over  than  under  100,000  strong."  It  was  utterly  impossible  to  furnish 
this  number,  and  this  reason  joined  to  the  fact  thatamaj>  rity  of  the  highest  officers 
of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  counsefed  a  withdrawal,  and  that  a  movement  to  effect 
a  juncr.ioti  with  the  forces  in  front  of  -Washington,  now  under  General  Pope,  wai 
essential  to  cover  the  Capital  against  the  attack  which  the  rebels  were  absolutely 
certain  to  make,  and  for  which  they  were  at  this  very  time  actually  preparing,  de 
termined  the  Administration  to  recall  the  army  from  the  Peninsula. 

The  order  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  army  from  the  Peninsula  was  given  by  Gen 
eral  Hal  leek,  on  the  3d  of  August.  The  point  to  which  it  was  ordered  was  Aquia 
Creek,  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  junction  with  the  forces  under  Pope  on  the 
Rappahatmock.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  after  this  course  was  determined 
upon  the  utmost  possible  promptitude  in  execution  of  the  design  was  absolutely 
necessary,  for  there  could  be  HO  doubt  that  the  purpose  of  the  rebels  looking  to 
ward  a  movement  on  Washington  would  receive  the  most  powerful  stimulus  by  the 
knowledge  of  the  withdrawal  or' the  army  from  the  Peninsula. 

But  instead  of  this,  we  find  General  McClellan  sitting  down  to  expostulation,  and 
after  he  had  exhausted  this,  we  see  him  throwing  every  practical  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  getting  the  army  back.  He  urges  "  the  terribly  depressing  effect  on  the  North 
and  the  strong  probability  that  it  would  induce  foreign  powers  to  recognize  our  ad 
versaries,"  whereas  the  fact  is,  there  was  hardly  an  intelligent  man  in  the  North 
who  was  not  looking  with  the  most  intense  anxiety  to  the  removal  of  the  army  to 
a  position  where  it  could  be  interposed  between  the  enemy  and  the  menaced  Capi 
tal  of  the  nation.  He  promises,  however,  if  hia  counsel  does  not  prevail,  to  "obey 
the  order  with  a  sad  heart." 

This  "sadness  "  of  his  heart  seems  to  have  so  enfeebled  his  hand,  that  though  he 
was  ordered  to  commence  the  removal  of  the  army  on  the  3d  of  August,  day  after 
day  passed  before  anything  was  done  toward  it.  "It  is  believed,"  writes  General 
Halleck  to  him  under  date  of  the  5th,  "that  it  [the  removal]  can  be  done  now 
without  serious  danger.  This  may  dot  be  so  should  there  be  any  delay" 

Finally,  on  the  10th,  he  received  dispatches  which  should  have  stirred  the  most 
sluggish  nature  to  activity  :  "  They  are  fighting  General  Pope  to-day — there  must  be 
EO  further  delay  in  your  movements  ;  that  which  has  already  occurred  was  unexpected 
and  mu.it  be  satisfactorily  explained"  This  only  gives  McCiellan  an  opportunity  to 
show  the  enormous  "inherent  difficulties  of  the  movement" — difficulties*  which  were 
pointed  out  to  him  before  he-etarted  to  take  the  army  to  the  Peninsula,  but  which  he 
then  made  light  of—  and  he  ends  by  adding :  "It  is  not  possible  for  any  one  to  place 
this  army  where  you  wish  it  in  less  than  a  month  ;  if  Washington  is  in  danger  now 
this  army  can  scarcely  arrive  in  time  to  save  it  /"  What  a  cheering  person  General 
McClellan  is! 

Without  following  these  transactions  through  all  their  maddening  details,  suffice 
it  ta  say  that  it  was  the  20th  of  the  month — seventeen  days  after  the  order  for  with 
drawal  wa«  given — before  the  army  was  ready  to  embark  at  Yorktown,  Fortress 

*  There  is  connected  with  this  portion  ol  McClellan's  career  one  curious  piece  of  history  that 
merit*  a  passing  notice  here.  Headers  of  the  Report  will  not  have  failed  to  have  noted  an  extra 
ordinary  lett«  r  addressed  by  General  McOlellan  to  the  President,  from  Harrison's  Bar,  under  date 
of  July  7,  giving  his  "views"  on  the  political  situation.  This  document  opens  with  this  state 
ment  that  trie  "  rebellion  Ao-s  attxumtd  the  character  of  a  war  " — a  discovery  which,  perhaps, 
explains  the  peace  principles  on  which  General  MoJlellan  had  been  operating,  but  which  it  is 
a  misfortune  he  did  not  make  at  an  earlier  date.  It  then  proceeds  to  indicate  a  politico-military 
programme  of  the  moral  suasion  stamp,  stating  that  "  a  declaration  of  radical  views,  especialif 
I 


26 

Monroe  and  Newport's  News.  And  with  this  I  leave  it,  to  find  it  turning  up 
again  at  Alexandria,  where  I  shall  have  to  r«view  a  series  of  events,  the  most  ex 
traordinary,  perhaps,  in  General  MeClellan's  extraordinary  career. 

The  whole  rebel  array  was  now  rapidly  marching  northward  to  overwhelm  Pope 
and  precipitate  itself  on  Washington.  If  Gen.  MeClellan's  own  estimate  of  the  rebel 
force,  at  200  000,  was  correct,  Pope  had  upon  him  a  force  six  times  his  strength, 
and,  as  it  was,  he  certainly  had  upon  him  a  force  three  or  fowr  times  his  strength. 
His  instructions  were  to  "  stand  fast"  on  the  Rapoahannock  —  to  "fight  like  the 
devil  and  contest  every  inch  of  ground."  In  this  task,  he  was  cheered  by  the 
announcement  that  from  Alexandria  he  would  speedily  receive  heavy  rein 
forcements,  among  which  was  the  corps  of  Franklin,  which  he  designed  to  move  to 
Gainesville,  a  position  which  covered  Manassas  Junction,  and  watched  the  gaps  in 
the  Piedmont  Ridge. 

With  the  view  of  giving  effect  to  this  purpose,  Gen.  Halleck,  on  the  morning  of 
the  27th  of  August,  telegraphed  to  McClellan,  who  had  arrived  in  Alexandria  the 
day  before,  and  through  whom  all  reinforcements  to  Pope  must  pass,  that  "  Fraak- 
lin  s  corps  should  march  in  the  direction  of  Manassas  as  soon  as  possible."  Had 
this  order  been  obeyed,  Jackson's  forces,  defeated  and  driven  by  Pope  ou  the  2Hh, 
would  have  been  met  near  Centreville  the  next  afternoon  and  crushed. 

Now  I  ask  of  the  reader  to  bring  all  the  attention  and  patience  he  can  command, 
while  I  show  with  what  fertility  of  device,  and  what  prodigality  of  ingenuity, 
Gen.  McClellan  contrived  so  to  arrange  things  that  Pope  should  not  get  a  man  of 
these  reinforcements;  but  should  be  left  with  his  feeble  force  of  less  than  forty 
thousand  men  to  a  death-grapple  with  the  enemy  that  had  lately  defeated  McGlel- 
lan's  once  splendid  army  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men:  in  other  words, 
should  be  left  to  —  I  use  Gen.  McClellaa's  own  choice  phraselogy  —  "get  out  of  his 
tcrape"  And  I  shall  show  that  so  completely  successful  was  he  that  not  a  single 
man  ever  reached  Pope  after  McClellan  arrived  at  Alexandria.  <>, 

In  this  expose  I  shall  take  up  events  in  their  chronological  order,  beginning  with 
the  date  of  the  first  dispatch  to  McClellan  with  reference  to  the  forwarding  of  re 
inforcements.  I  shall  show  what  was  the  state  of  facts  in  front,  what  were  the  ne- 
eessities  of  the  occasion,  what  orders  Gen.  McClellan  received,  and  how  he  carried 
them  out  Let  me  add  that  I  shall  not  draw  from  the  testimony  of  Gen.  Pope,  nor 
from  the  overwhelming  array  of  facts  developed  by  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct 
of  the  War.  I  shall  confiine  myself  to  the  simple  setting  forih  of  the  text  of  the 
series  of  telegrams  that  passed  botween  headquarters  and  Gen.  McClellan,  though 
I  ahall.be  forced  to  draw  from  many  dispatchea  which  Gen.  McClellan,  for  reasons 
best  known  to  himself,  has  not  seen  fit  to  reproduce  in  his  eo-called  "  Reporu" 

T/te  27£A  of  August.  —  At  10  A.  M.,  Gen.  Halleck  telegraphs  McClellan: 

•*  Franklins  Corps  should  march  in  that  direction  [Manassae]  as  soon  aa  possible." 
At  10  20  Gen.  McClellan  replies: 

"  I  have  sent  orders  to  Franklin  to  prepare  to  march,  and  to  repair  far*  [Alexaadrla]  **  > 
j»*r«<w,  to  inform  me  a*  to  hit  meant  of  transportation." 

At  noon  Gen.  Halleck  reiterates,  with  emphasis,  his  order  to  Fraaklin  to 
march. 

**  Franklin's?  corps  should  more  out  by  forced  marches,  carrying  three  or  four  days  provUlon." 
&c< 

To  this  Gen.  McClellan  replies  at  1  15  P.  M.  : 

'Franklin's  artillery  hayeno  horses,  except  for  four  guns;"  and  adds:  "Ida  notsee  that  UH 
orce  6v  ough  in  hand  to  form  a  connection  with  Pope,  whose  taoa-ct  position  we  do  not 


Is  it  not  very  strange  that  in  order  that  Franklin  shou  d  march  with  his  corps,  Gen. 
McClelLin  should  begin  by  calling  him  awayyVowtit?  If  Franklin's  arrillery  lacked 
horses,  why  did  he  not  take  horses  which  were  in  abundance  in  Alexandria?  That 
this  was  so,  I  shall  presently  establish  conclusively;  and  I  shall  also  show  that 
neither  McClellan,  nor  Franklin,  ever  applied  for  transportation  to  the  Quarterma*9~ 
Department,  which  was  ready  instantly  to  furnish  it. 


upon  Slavery,  witt  rapidly  disintegrate  our  present  armies.'  Now,  what  is  notable,  in  this 
paper  is,  that  it  uxts  writen  in  Washington  before  he  leftf>r  his  Peninsular  catuptiifln.  and  wot 
intended  to  be  ixtnied  in  Richmond  He  fancied  he  would  there.be  in  a  position  t<»  dictate  terms 
and  indicate  the  public  policy.  Not  finding  his  expected  opportunity  to  flre  off  the  shot  he  had 
prepared,  he  took  the  best  occasion  he  could  find  ;  and  so,  putting  on  a  "tag"  at  the  beginning 
and  the  end,  he  brought  it  out  at  Harrison's  Landing  Its  ineffable  impudence  th«  haggard 
and  untimely  look  it  wears,  and  the  inherent  Absurdity  of  the  proposition  t"  deal  leniently 
with  those  at  whose  hands  he  had  ju*t  euflervd  disastrous  defeat,  are  sufficiently  accounted  for  *j 
the  eircum  stances  detailed. 


27 

The  28£A  of  August. — On  the  morning  of  the  28th,  Halleck  telegraphs  directly  to 
franklin  : 

"  On  parting  with  (Jen.  McCIellan.  about  2  o'clock  this  morning,  it  was  understood  that  you 
were  to  move  with  your  corps  to-day  toward  Mannssas  Junction,  to  drive  the  enemy  from  the 
railroad.  I  have  just  learned  that  the  genei4l  has  not  returned  to  Alexandria.  If  you  have  not 
received  his  order,  act  on  this." 

To  this,  at  1  P.  M.,  McCIellan,  not  Franklin,  replies: 

"Your  dispatch  to  Franklin  received.  I  h;ive  been  doing  all  possible  to  hurry  artillery  and 
cavalry.  The  moment  that  Franklin  can  be  started  with  a  reasonable  amount  of  artillery  h«  shall 
go  *  *  *  *  *  *  Please  see  Barnnrd,  and  be  sure  the  works  toward  the  Chain 
Bridge  are  perfectly  secure.  I  look  upon  those  works,  Ethan  Allen  and  Marcy,  as  of  the  first 
importance  " 

At  3  30  P.  M.,  Halleck  impatiently  telegraphs  McCIellan : 

"  Not  a  moment  rmist  1)6  lost  in  pursuing  as  large  a  focce  as  possible  toward  Manasses,  so  as 
to  communicate  with  Pope  before  the  enemy  is  reinforced." 

To  this  McCIellan  repliel  at  4  40  P.  M.: 

"  Gen.  Franklin  is  with  me  here.  I  will  know  in  a  few  minutes  the  condition  of  artillery  and 
cavalry.  We  are  not  yet  in  a  condition  to  move— may  be  by  to-morrow  morning." 

At  8  40  P.  M.,  Halleck  still  more  imperatively  telegraphs: 

"There  must  be  no  further  delay  in  moving  Franklin's  corps  toward  Manassas ;  they  must  go  to 
morrow  morning,  ready  or  not  ready.  If  we  delay  too  long  to  get  ready,  there  will  be  no  ne 
cessity  to  go  at  all  for  Pope  Witt  either  be  defeated  or  victorious  loithout  our  aid.  If  there  is  a 
want  of  wagons,  the  men  must  carry  provisions  with  them  till  the  wagons  can  come  to  their 
relief." 

To  which  Gen.  McCIellan  replies  at  1 0  P.  M. : 

'•Your  dispatch  received.  Franklin's  corps  has  been  ordered  to  march  at  6  o'clock  to-morrow 
morning.  Sumner  has  about  14,000  infantry,  without  cavalry  or  artillery,  here." 

These  dispatches  e^ive  the  history  of  the  28th  of  August.  Not  one  of  these  is 
published  by  Gen.  McCIellan  in  his  Report.  They  show  the  reiterated  orders  Gen. 
McCIellan  received  to  send  reinforcements  to  Pope,  and  the  imminence  of  the  crisis 
that  was  upon  that  General.  They  show  on  the  part  of  McCIellan  the  shallow  sub 
terfuges  he  employed  to  avoid  obeying  these  orders.  In  this  whole  series  of  excus 
es,  there  is  but  one  that  presents  even  the  show  of  sebstantiallity — namely  the  sup 
posed  lack  of  transportation  ;  but  the  utter  baselessness  of  this  pretence  is  made 
manifest  by  a  dispatch  of  Gen.  Halleck  a  day  or  two  afterward,  in  which  he  says: 
"I  learned  la$t»  night  (29th)  that  the  Quartermasters  Department  would  have  given 
him  (Franklin)  plenty  of  transportation  if  he  had  applied  for  it  any  time  since  A« 
arrival  at  Alexandria." 

The  29^7*  of  August. — At  length,  two  whole  days  after  the  imperative  order  was 
given  to  Gen.  McCIellan  to  have  Franklin  "move  out  by  forced  marches,"  he  is  able 
to  say,  "Franklin's  corps  is  in  motion."  To  be  sure,  Gen.  McCIellan  confesses  that 
his  repeated  promises  throughout  the  the  two  previous  days  to  send  Franklin  for- 
ward  were  all  sham,  for  he  says;  "I  should  not  have  moved  him  but  for  your  press 
ing  orders  of  last  night."  Still  he  is  at  length  under  way,  and  thei#  is  yet  a  possi 
bility  that  he  will  reach  Pope  in  time.  Yaiu  hope  I  He  halts  Franklin  at  Anan- 
dale  and  coolly  telegraphs  to  Halleck: 

"  Do  you  wish  the  movement  of  Franklin's  corps  to  continue  t  He  is  without  reserve  ammuni 
tion  and  without  transportation." 

Gen.  Halleck  must  be  a  very  mild  mannered  man,  for  he  simply  replies : 

"  I  want  Franklin*  s  corps  to  move  far  ennugh  to  find  out  something  about  the-  enemy.  Perhaps 
he  may  get  such  information  at  Anandale  as  to  prevent  his  going  further ;  otherwise,  he  will 
push  on  toward  Fairfax.  Try  to  get  something  from  direction  of  Manassas,  Cither  by  telegrams 
or  through  Franklin's  scouts.  Our  people  must  move  more  actively,  and  find  out  where  the  ene 
my  is.  lam  tired  of  guesses." 

Gen.  McClellau  had  now  exhausted  all  the  resources  of  a  diabolical  ingenuity  in 
order  to  keep  Pope  from  receiving  reinforcements.  He  had  by  this  means  gained 
two  days  and  a  half;  that  is,  from  10  A.  M.  of  the  27th  until  3"  P.  M.  of  the  29th. 
He  knew  that  Pope  had  by  this  time  the  whole  rebel  army  upon  him.  He  knew 
that  a  grteat  battfoft  was  that  very  morning  and  afternoon  going  on,  for  the  roar  of 
the  artillery  came  to  his  ears  at  Alexandria,  where  he  held  thirty  thousand  loyal 
Americans  in  the  leasa,  while  their  brothers  in  arms  were  being  overwhelmed.  It 
was  a  crisis  with  McCIellan,  and  he  must  either  let  the  troops  go  forward  to  Pope 
or  devise  a  new  system  of  tactics.  He  could  no  longer  pretend  that  he  did  not 
know  where  Pope  was — he  could  no  longer  pretend  that  he  did  not  know  how  far 
Gen.  Halleck  wished  Franklin  to  advance.  He  was  brought  to  the  wall  by  Gen. 
Halleck's  emphatic  order.  "  Our  people  must  find  out  where  the  enemy  is  /" 

Gen.  McCIellan  was  equal  to  the  emergency.  He  drops  the  correspondence  with. 
Halleck,  and  cooLy  indites  to  the  President  of  the  United  States  the  following  dia- 


28 

patch,  the  most  extraordinary  ever  penned  by  any  man  wearing  a  soldier's  uniform. 
I  pause  for  a  moment  to  ask  the  reader  to  take  in  a  full  realizing  sense  of  the 
import  of  the  following  amazing  words: 

"The  last  news  I  received  from  the  direction  of  Manassas  was  from  stragglers,  to  the  effect 
that  the  *n«my  were  evacuating  (Jenterville  and  retiring  towards  Thoroughfare  Gap.  This  is  by 
no  means  reliable.  I  am  clear  that  one  of  two  courses  should  be  adopted.  First — To  concen 
trate -all  our  available  forces  to  open  communication  with  Pope.  Second — To  lew,  Pope  to  get 
out  of  his  scrape,  and  at  once  to  use  all  means  to  make  the  Capital  perfectly  safe.  No  middle 
eourse  will  now  answer.  Tell  me  what  you  wish  me  to  do  and  I  will  do  all  in  my  power  to  ae- 
eomolish  it.  I  wish  to  know  what  my  orders  and  authority  are.  I  ask  for  nothing,  but  will  obey 
whatever  orders  you  give.  I  only  ask  a  prompt  decision,  that  I  may  at  once  give  the  necessary 
orders.  It  will  not  do  to  delay  longer." 

Expressive  silence  is  the  only  possible  comment  on  this  astounding  proposition, 
'for  the  profound  horror  and  contempt  such  words  inspire  take  away  all  power  of 
<jool  dissection.  It  is  said  that  when  Mr.  Lincoln  read  this  dispatch  he  fell  back  in 
tiis  chair  in  a  half  fainting  fit,and  even  at  this  distance  of  time  it  is  hardly  possible 
to  read  it  without  a  sinking  of  the  heart. 

General  MiiClellan  in  the  above  proposition  suggests  two  courses.  I  need  not 
say  that  they  are  substantially  one  and  the  same.  He  knew  that  Lee's  junction  with 
Jackson  was  now  certain — rFitz  John  Porter  had  attended  to  that.  In  either  case, 
therefore,  Pope  was  perfectly  certain  to  be  left  to  "  get  out  of  his  scrape." 

But  what  was  the  "  scrape  "  out  of  which  Pope  was  to  get?  Into  what  horrible 
indiscretion — so  unwarranted  that  to  leave  him  to  ''get  out"  of  it  was  only  just 
punishment  on  him — had  he  rushed?  Will  it  be  believed  that  he  got  into  "the  scrape" 
at  the  urgent  instance  of  General  McClellan,  who  begged  Pope  to  make  a  diversion 
in  his  favor?  Will  it  be  believed  that,  with  the  loyal  alacrity  of  a  true  soldier,  he 
had,  in  obedience  to  this  request,  thrown  himself  down  on  the  Rapidan  to  compel 
the  enemy  to  loose  his  hold  on  the  Army  of  the  Potomac — that  he  received  the 
whole  weight  of  the  rebel  force  precipitated  upon  him — that  with  masterly  general 
ship  he  kept  back  that  force  for  seventeen  days,  fighting  in  that  time  several  large 
battles,  in  which,  repeatedly  successful,  he  gave  the  rebels  their  first  taste  of  true 
punishment — that  by  this  means  he  succeeded  in  gaining  time  sufficient  for  General 
McCiellan  to  bring  back  his  army  to  the  defence  of  the  Capital?  Yet  such  are  the 
facts  which  history  records.  Now  we  understand.  This  was  the  "scrape  "  Pope 
was  to  get  out  of! 

The  30//i  of  August. — I  have  exhausted  the  main  action  in  this  strange  drama, 
but  there  remains  an  episode  that  should  take  its  place  in  this  recital.  So  far  as  the 
keeping  back  of  reinforcements  g°es,  General  McClellan  had  done  his  best  that  Pope 
should  not  "get  out  of  his  scrape."  But  there  remains  a  touch  beyond  this.  Pope's 
ammunition,  rations  and  forage  were  now  exhausted,  and  he  sent  to  Washington  to 
procure  supplies.  General  McClellan  was  to  fill  the  orders.  You  shall  now  see  how 
he  did  it. 

To  the  request  for  ammmunition,  General  MeClellan  telegraphs  at  1  :  10  p.  m.  : 
"I  know  nothing^)/  the  calibre  of  Pope  a  artillery"  Yet  he  was  within  two  minutes 
telegraphic  communication  with  the  Ordnance  Bureau  at  Washington,  where  he 
might  have  had  full  information  on  this  point. 

To  the  request  for  rations,  General  Franklin  replies  : 

°I  have  been  instructed  by  General  McClellan  to  inform  you  that  he  will  have  all  the  available 
waguns  at  Alexandria  loaded  with  rations  for  your  troops,  and  all  of  the  care  al&e,  a*  »oon  as  you 
will,  ttend  in  a  cavalry  escort  to  Alexandria  as  a  guard  to  tea  traiu. 

I  cannot  better  set  forth  thia  matter  in  its  true  bearing-}  than  by  giving  th« 
following  passage  from  General  Pope's  official  report : 

M  About  daylight  of  the  80th,  I  received  a  note  from  General  Franklin,  written  by  direction  of 
General  Mci'lellan,  informing  me  that  rations  and  forage  would  be  loaded  inr,o  all  the  available 
wagons  and  cars  at  Alexandria,  as  soon  as  I  w^uld  send  bacd  a  cavalry  escort  to  guard  the  trains. 
Such  h  letter,  when  we  were  fighting  the  enemy,  an«l  Alexandria  was  swarming  with  troops,  need* 
no  comment.  Bad  as  was  the  condition  of  our  cavalry,  I  was  in  no  situation  to  spare  troops  from 
the  front,  nor  could  they  have  gone  to  Alexandria  and  retunred  within  the  time  by  tohich  toe 
must  have  had  provisions  or  have/ > lien  back  in  the  direction  <if  Washington;  nor  do  I  964 
usfiat  xerv-ice  cavalry  could  have  rendered  in  guarding  railroad  zratna." 

I  must  let  this  close  this  exposition  of  the  extraordinary  aeries  of  transactions 
H  Alexandria,  in  which  I  have  done  little  else  than  allow  official  dispatches  to  tell 
their  own  story.  I  leave  the  reader  to  form  his  own  judgment  and  pronounce  his 
own  verdict.  But  one  remark  remains.  I  have  hitherto  had  occasion  to  call  in 
question  General  McClellan's  capacity.  The  conduct  here  set  forth  invitee  a  ques 
tion  of  his  loyalty.  I  cannot  enter  General  McClellan's  private  thought,  and  piuok 
out  the  "heart  of  his  mystery."  It  is  possible  that  bis  conduct  at  Alexandria  was 
nothing  more  than  the  effect  of  heartless  selfishness  and  ambition,  which  can  lead 


29 

up  to  the  very  door  of  treason  without  passing  "within.  It  is  now  certain  that  it 
was  the  avowed  purpose  of  McClellan  and  his  friends  so  to  arrange  matters  as  that 
the  army  should,  to  use  their  expression,  "fall  back  into  his  arms"  at  Washington. 
For  this  end  it  was  essential  that  Pope  should  not  obtain  reinforcements,  for  had  be 
received  the  thirty  thousand  troops  that  lay  idle  at  Alexandria,  he  would  beyond  a 
doubt  have  beaten  the  rebel  army.  That  he  should  do  so  was  manifestly  not  at  aM 
in  General  McClellan's  programme. 

Looking  at  General  McClellan's  conduct  as  it  stands  revealed  in  his  own  dispatches, 
I  can  only  pay  to  him,  "  if  this  be  loyalty,  make  the  most  of  it." 


CLOSING  SCENES  IN  McCLELLAN'S  CAREER. 

If,  now,  after  the  cxposb  I  have  made  of  the  conduct  of  General  McClellan  in  th« 
extraordinary  series  of  transactions  recorded  in  the  preceeding  chapter,  the  ques 
tion  be  asked,  why  it  was  that,  after  behavior  which  in  any  other  country  in  the 
world  would  have  caused  him  to  be  court-martialed,  we  rind  that  general  not  only 
NOT  called  to  account,  but  presently  restored  to  the  full  command  of  the  Array  of 
the  Potomac,  L  fraukly  reply  that  this  question  must  be  left  to  history  to  an 
swer.  History  will  not  fail  to  ask  the  question,  but  the  answer  will  be  given  both 
with  a  fuller  knowledge  of  all  the  facts  in  the  case  than  we  now  posses?,  and  under 
circumstances  when  those  considerations  of  the  public  gi>od  that  now  put  a  check 
on  our  venturing  on  even  such  revelations  as  it  is  in  our  power  to  make,  will  no 
longer  be  in  force.  We  can,  however,  anticipate  the  verdict  in  so  far  as  to  say  that 
history  will  recognize  that,  in  his  action  in  this  matter,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  moved  only 
by  the  purest  and  most  patriotic  motives,  and  if  his  yielding  of  intellectual  convic 
tions  which  he  must  even  then  have  formed,  iiidk-ated  a  blameable  weakness,  he 
erred  only  from  the  excess  of  his  unselfish  anxiety  for  the  public  good,  at  a  tim« 
when  things  and  the  thoughts  of  men  were  plunged  into  utter  chaos  and  collapse. 
Pope  had  now  "  got  out  of  his  scrape  " — aa  best  he  could,  and  the  army  had  fal 
len  back  to  Washington,  where  the  arrangements  of  McClellan's  friends  to  have  it 
"fall  into  his  arms"  were  crowned  with  all  the  success  they  could  have  desired. 
Pope  iell  back  to  the  works  in  front  of  Washington  on  the  2d  of  September;  on  th« 
same,  McClellan  took  command,  and  Lee,  filing  off  the  left,  proceeded  to  do  what  Gen 
eral  McClell.in,  in  his  first  memorandum,  had  staked  his  military  sagacity  "no  capa 
ble  general"  would  do — that  is,  he  crossed  the  Potomac  to  make  his  first  invasion 
of  the  loyal  States. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  review  the  Maryland  campaign  with  that  fullness  of  de 
tail  that  has  characterized  the  analysis  of  the  previous  portion  of  General  McCleJ- 
lan'ti  career,  for  my  aim  is  not  so  much  to  dissect  the  historical  facts  themselves  a* 
to  dissect  General  McClellan's  character  and  conduct  as  revealed  in  these  facte. 
Now,  in  this  regard,  what  remains  funishes  really  nothing  essentially  new.  We  are 
presented  with  the  same  characteristics  of  genius  and  generalship  which  we  hav« 
already  discovered — the  same  unreadiness  to  move  promptly  at:d  act  vigorously  ; 
the  same  clamoring  for  "  more  troops"  before  advancing;  the  same  reference  to 
the  great  superiority  of  numbers  on  the  part  of  the  enemy.  It  is,  after  all,  a  dismal 
Btory,  and  has  probably  already  tested  the  human  stomach  to  its  utmost  limits. 

In  the  Maryland  invasion,  the  intentions  of  Lee,  after  striking  Frederick,  appear  to 
have  ai;ued  exclusively  at  the  capture  of  Harper's  Ferry.  His  combinations  for  this 
end  are  now  fully  revealed  by  an  order  of  Lee's  found  at  Frederick,  and  which  dis 
closes  the  whole  programme  of  operations.  By  this  it  appears  that  the  commands 
of  Jackson,  Longstreet,  McLaws,  and  Walker — that  is,  in  fact,  the  whole  rebel  army 
with  the  exception  of  the  division  of  D.  H.  Hill — were  aligned  parts  in  the  cap 
ture  of  Harper's  Ferry.  The  single  division  of  D.  II.  Hill  and  part  of  Stuart's  cav 
alry  formed  the  rearguard  destined  to  check  any  pursuit  of  MeClellan,  while  th« 
whole  rebel  force  ehould  move  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  end  proposed. 

In  a  military  point  of  view  this  was  a  bold  operation,  and  the  rebel  general  shouk! 
have  been  umde  to  pay  dearly  for  venturing  upon  it,  And  yet,  if  wo  consider  that 
the  combinations  of  a  commander  are  necessarily  largely  influenced  by  his  knowl 
edge  of  the  character  of  his  opponent,  we  must  admit  that  Lee,  aware  of  the  tardy 
genius  of  McClellan,  was  authorized  in  taking  a  step  which,  against  a  vigorous  op 
ponent,  ought  to  have  secured  his  destruction.  At  any  rate,  the  event  fully  jusu 
fied  his  action.  McClellan,  intrusted  with  the  duty  of  meeting  and  crushing  th* 
invading  army,  moved  out  by  elow  and  easy  stages — at  aw  average  nf  fix  milex  a  d<ty 
— and  accommodated  L«e  with  all  the  time  be  Deeded.  Of  courae,  ho  was  able  t« 


30 

accomplish  his  designed  object — the  capture  of  Harper's  Ferry,  its  garrisons  and 
stores;  but  connected  with  this,  and  General  McClellan's  responsibility  for  it,  there 
are  one  or  two  circumstances  that  deserve  more  detailed  examination. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  moment  Lee  crossed  the  Potomac,  the  forces  at  Har 
per's  Ferry  were  placed  in  a  false  position  and  should  have  been  promptly  with 
drawn.  But  we  find  no  recommendation  to  this  effect  by  General  McClellan  during 
the  period  in  which  it  was  possible  to  carry  it  out.  His  first  utterance  on  the  sub 
ject  is  in  a  dispatch  to  General  Halleek,  dated  "  Camp  near  Roekville,  Sept.  10," 
in  the  following  terms  : 

"  Colonel  Miles  is  at  or  near  Harper's  Ferry,  as  I  understand,  with  nine  thousand  troOps.  He 
can  do  nothing  where  he  is,  but  could  be  of  great  service  if  ordered  to  join  me.  I  suggest  that  he 
be  ordered  to  join  me  by  the  most  practicable  route." 

Now  let  us  consider  what  the  result  of  the  execution  of  this  order  would  have 
been.  Lee's  instructions  to  Jackson,  Longstreet,  <fcc.,  to  move  to  the  capture  of 
Harper's  Ferry,  are  dated  the  day  previous,  Sept.  9.  An  order,  to  Colonel  Miles  "to 
join  him  by  the  most  practicable  route,"  as  recommended  by  McClellan,  would, 
therefore,  have  simply  brought  his  force  into  the  arms  of  the  rebel  army,  and  Jackson 
would  have  been  saved  the  trouble  of  even  the  semblance  of  investment  he  thought 
proper  to  make  of  Harper's  Ferry.  In  this  state  of  facts  General  Halleck's  reply  of 
the  same  day  to  the  dispatch  of  McClellan  is  as  sensible  as  could  possibly  have  been 
given  : 

"  There  is  no  way  for  Colonel  Miles  to  join  you  at  present  ;  hia  only  chance  is  to  defend  his 
works  till  you  can  open  communication  with  him." 

"Till  you  can  open  communication  with  him  ;"  but  with  a  "pursuit"  at  the  rat* 
of  six  miles  a  day  against  an  enemy  moving  at  the  rate  of  twenty,  was  there  much 
chance  to  "  open  communication  ?"  Moreover,  McClellan  lost  the  opportunity 
offered  him  of  moving  by  the  direct  route  to  Harper's  Ferry.  Lee  calculated  that 
by  threatening  with  his  rear  guard  the  passage  into  Pennsylvania  he  would  draw 
McClellan  off  from  the  flank  march  which  was  open  to  him  to  Harper's  Ferry.  In 
this  calculation  he  was  correct,  and  while  he  was  engaged  with  a  feeble  detachment 
of  the  rebel  force  at  South  Mountain,  the  garrison  at  Harper's  Ferry,  12,000  strong, 
*  with  all  its  vast  military  stores,  on  the  14th  fell  into  the  hands  of  Jackson.  As  a 
military  tribunal  has  pronounced  judgment  on  this  sad  affair,  there  is  no  need  of 
going  into  it  here ;  it  is  proper,  however,  to  cite  the  conclusion  of  its  finding,  which 
is  in  the  following  terms: 

"  The  commission  has  freely  remarked  on  Colonel  Miles,  an  old  officer,  who  has  been  killed  in 
the  service  of  his  country,  and  it  cannot  from  any  metives  of  delicacy  refrain  from  censuring  those 
in  high  command,  when  it  thinks  such  censure  deserved.  The  General  in-Chief  has  testified  that 
General  McClellan,  after  having  received  orders  to  repel  the  enemy  .invading  the  State  of  Mary 
land,  marched  only  six  miles  per  day,  on  an  average,  wh«n  pursuing  this  invading  army.  The 
General-in-Chief  also  testifies  that  in  his  opinion  General.  McClellan  could  and  shonld  have  re 
lieved,  and  protected  Harper'*  ferry,  and  in  this  opinion' the  commission  fully  concur." 

General  McClellan's  dispatches  of  this  period,  carefully  suppressed  by  him  from 
his  "  Report,"  show  that  from  the  first  step  he  took  out  of  Washington  in  pursuit  of 
Lee,  he  was  haunted  by  those  horrible  visions  of  the  fabulous  legions  of  the  enemy 
that  we  have  seen  constantly  oppressing  him.  While  still  at  Rockville,  under  date 
of  the  9th  September,  we  find  him  writing  :  "  From  such  information  as  can  be  ob 
tained,  Jackson  and  Longstreet  have  about  a  hundred  and  ten  thousand,  (110,000) 
men  of  all  arms  near  Frederick,  with  some  cavalry  this  side." 

The  monstrosity  of  this  estimate  is  readily  apparent  from  the  fact  that  even  had 
the  Corps  of  Jackson  and  Longstreet  been  at  the  full  (40,000  men  each)  their  united 
commands  could  only  have  numbered  eighty  thousand ;  but  it  is  perfectly  well 
known  that,  after  the  series  of  severe  actions  thz-ough  which  they  had  gone,  their 
corps  did  not  count  one-half  their  complement.  But  General  McClellan  was  des 
tined  to  go  several  thousand  better  on  this  estimate.  Reversing  the  usual  maxim 
that 

"  'Tis  distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view,  " 

the  nearer  McClellan  approached  the  enemy,  the  vaster  his  proportions  grew.  On 
the  llth  we  find  him  stating  that  "almost  the  entire  rebel  army  in  Virginia, 
amounting  to  not  less  than  120,000  men,  is  in  the  vicinity  of  Frederick  city  ;"  and 
a  day  or  two  afterward  that  army  had  resumed  its  old  Chickahominy  proportions 
of  "  180,000  men  !"  Now  with  regard  to  Lee's  army  in  Maryland,  we  have  infor 
mation  more  than  usually  precise  respecting  its  strength.  It  all  passed  through 
Frederick  city,  where  it  was  carefully  counted,  and  where  it  was  found  to  number, 
how  many  do  you  suppose?  It  was  found  to  number  precisely  fifty  five  thousand 
effective  men !  Remember,  now,  that  MoClellan's  old  Peninsular  army,  swelled  in 


31 

Washington  by  a  great  part  of  the  command  of  Pope,  numbered  at  thia  time  over  a 
hundred  and  twenty  thousand  men — that  is,  that  McClellan's  force  outnumbered  the 
enemy's  more  than  two  to  one — and  you  will  have  the  proper  test  by  which  to  judge 
of  his  generalship  in  the  actions  which  followed. 

The  rear  guard  left  by  Lee  at  South  Mountain  fully  succeeded  in  delaying  t^e  ad 
vance  of  McClfllan  until  such  time  as  Jackson  and  Hill  had  compelled  the  surrender  of 
Harper's  Ferry  and  the  capitulation  of  the  garrison.  But  even  after  arriving  before 
Antietam  Greek  he  had  still  an  opportunity  on  the  16th  of  September — the  day  be 
fore  the  battle — to  strike  Lee  before  Jackson  returned.  This  opportunity,  also,  he 
threw  away.  Says  an  English  military  critic,  who  always  deals  tenderly  with 
McClellan:  "Examining  the  proceedings  of  the  16th  of  September^  by  the  account 
most  favorable  to  the  Federal  leader,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  extreme  cau 
tion  which  he  then  displayed  caused  him  to  throw  away  the  opportunity  of  crush 
ing  the  enemy,  which  the  resistance  of  Harper's  Ferry,  brief  though  it  was,  placed 
before  him." 

Duri.-g  that  night  Jackson  arrived  with  his  corps,  and  the  next  day,  September 
Itth,  vheii  the  movement  of  Hooker  drove  McClellan  into  battle,  Lee  had  his  whole 
force  massed  at  Antietam.  But  his  whole  force  was  doubly  outnumbered  by  that 
of  McClellan.  The  battle  was  delivered  without  order  or  ensemble — the  attacks 
being  made  feebly  aud  in  driblets.  Says  General  Sumner,  in  regard  to  the  manner 
of  conducting  the  battle  of  Antietam : 

u  liave  always  believed  that,  instead  of  sending  these  troops  into  that  action  in  driblets  as  they 
were  sent,  if  General  McClellan  had  authorized  me  to  march  these  40,000  men  on  the  left  flank  o 
the  enemy,  we  could  not  have  failed  to  throw  them  right  back  in  front  of  the  other  divisions  o 
our  army  on  our  left — Buruside's,  Franklin's,  and  Porter's  corps.  As  it  was,  we  went  in.  division 
after  division,  until  even  one  of  my  own  divisions  was  forced  out,  the  other  two  drove  the.  enemy 
and  held  their  positions.  My  intention  was  to  have  proceeded  entirely  on  by  their  left  and  move 
down,  bringing  ihem  right  in  front  of  Burnside,  H'ranklin  and  Porter. 

Question.  And  all  escape  for  the  enemy  would  have  been  impossible? 

Answer.  I  think  so.'* 

On  the  night  of  the  18th  the  enemy,  abandoned  their  position,  their  ammunition 
being  exhausted,  and  returned  across  the  Potomac  into  Virginia,  without  molestation. 
McClellan  slowly  followed  and  took  up  a  position  along  the  Potomac,  on  the  Mary 
land  side.  Lee  established  himself  at  the  mouth  of  the  valley,  just  south  of  Har 
per's  Ferry. 

If  any  combination  of  circumstances  can  be  conceived  calculated  to  prompta  gen 
eral  to  energetic  preparations  to  retrieve  his  tarnished  laurels,  it  was  such  an  ex 
perience  as  General  McClellen  had  passed  through.  The  campaign  toward  Richmond, 
•undertaken  on  his  favorite  line  and  began  with  loud  promises  of  the  speedy  annihi 
lation  of  the  enemy,  had  ended  in  that  enemy's  assuming  the  initiative,  invading 
the  territory  of  the  loyal  States  and  compelling  McClellan's  hasty  retreat  to  cover 
the  capital.  The  country,  which  had  lavished  its  resources  to  furnish,  that  General 
with  an  incomparable  aVmy,  felt  the  profoundest  humiliation  and  mortification 
at  the  disastrous  disappointment  of  its  just  expectations,  and  after  Lee's  retreat  be- 

fan  to  look  anxiously  for  a  blow  to  be  struck  that  would  retrieve  the  national 
onor.  Antietam  having  been  fought  about  the  middle  of  September,  there  was 
a  prospect  of  a  season  of  a  couple  of  month?,  during  which  the  state  o/  the  roads 
«nd  the  w-  ather  would  favor  military  operations,  and  one  would  suppose  that 
he  -would  eagerly  avail  himself  of  this  opportunity  to  strike  a  blow.  As  usual 
•with  him  he  was  during  this  period  constantly  promising  to  do  so.  On  the  2Yth  he 
•wrote  to  General  Halleck :  "  When  the  river  rises  so  that  the  enemy  cannot 
cross  in  force.  I  purpose  concentrating  the  army  somewhere  near  Harper's  Ferry 
and  then  moving,"  etc.  Well,  shortly  after,  this  condition  was  fulfil.1  sd,  and  still 
he  remained  inactive.  The  burden  of  all  his  communications  of  this  period  was  for 
more  men,  and  still  more  men.though  he  had  now  under  his  command  an  army  150,000 
•trong.  On  the  6th  of  October  he  was  peremptorily  ordered  to  ''cross  the  Potomac  and 
give  battle  to  the  enemy,  or  drive  him  South.  Your  army  must  move  now  while 
the  roads  are  good."  Week  after  week  passed  without  the  order  being  obeyed. — 
To  cover  up  his  disobedience  he  has  much  to  say  in  his  Report  of  the  deficiency  of 
the  army  in  sh<  es,  clothing,  etc.;  but  the  hollowness  of  this  pretense  is  fully  dis 
played  in  the  letters  of  General  Meigs  and  Halleck,  and  even  by  his  own  chief 
quartermaster,  General  Ingalls.  Besides,  even  if  there  were  slight  deficiencies  in 
this  respect,  as  there  will  be  in  every  army,  (though  no  army  in  the  world  was  ever 
•upplied  as  McClellan's  was,)  it  would  still  have  been  better  for  him  to  have  moved 

aiting  to 

orps  commander  in  his  army  to  the  writer, 

Report  oo  the  Conduct  of  th«  War,.  TO!,  I,  p.  308, 


-with  this  drawback  than,  by  waiting  to  supply  the  deficit,  to  throw  the  time  of 
moyintr  over  to  the  bad  season.     Said  a  corns  commander  in  his  arrnv  to  the  write? 


82 


on  the  rainy  November  morning  when  the  movement  finally  began,  "We  could 
better  have  advanced  in  September  or  October  with  the  army  barefoot  than  we  can 
now  perfectly  supplied  1  "  j 

After  nearly  two  months  delay,  General  McClellan  was  pried  from  his  base  by  an 
imperative  order,  just  as  he  had  been  pried  out  of  Washington  by  the  like  means  in 
the  preceding  April,  and  he  began  his  forward  movement  by  the  inner  line,  east  of 
the  Blue  Ridge.  But  it  Boon  became  evident  from  the  slowness  of  his  movements, 
the  spirit  in  which  he  acted,  and  the  complications  into  which  he  had  plunged 
himself  with  the  military  authorities  at  Washington,  that  no  good  results  could  be 
expected  from  his  campaign.  He  was  accordingly  ordered  to  reeign  command^f 
the  army  at  Warrentoa,  on  the  5th  of  November. 

Thus  closes  a  career  certainly  among  the  most  extraordinary  on  record,  and  not 
less  extraordinary  from  the  record  General  McClellan  has  given  of  it  to  the  world  in 
the  "Report  which  has  formed  the  subject-matter  of  this  critique.  But  it  is  not  yet 
possible  for  any  man  to  follow  out  in  the  complex  web  of  historic  cause  and  effect 
all  the  results  that  have  come,  and  may  yet  come,  from  that  career.  These  results 
are  more  and  other  than  military,  and  they  did  not  cease  when  his  military  career 
closed.  If,  having  failed  as  a  military  commander,  he  had  left  us  merely  the  legacy 
of  disaster  we  inherited  from  him,  if  we  had  been  only  destined  to  find  that  the 
man  we  had  chosen  for  a  leader  in  the  dread  ordeal  into  which  the  nation  was 
plunged  by  the  war  was  a  mere  blunderer  and  incompetent,  we  might  curse  our 
folly  and  thank  heaven  for  having  raised  up  other  men  to  fight  our  battles.  But  he 
left  us  another  heritage  than  that  of  military  calamities.  He  darkened  men's  minds, 
end  paralvzed  their  arms,  with  doubts  and  fears.  The  nation  had  put  forth  its 
strength  lavishly  only  to  see  it  wasted  ;  but  we  could  have  borne  this,  had  not  th« 
very  springs  of  confidence  been  sapped  by  the  charge  that  all  this  waste,  these  dis 
asters,  were  due  to  the  incompetence  and  malevolence  of  the  Administration.  While 
still  in  command,  McClellan  lent  the  weight  of  his  endorsement  to  the  rising  spirit  of 
faction  which  sought  to  throw  all  the  blame  of  his  failures  upon  an  Administration 
which  the  people  were  taught  to  believe  had  by  its  influence  baulked  all  his  bril 
liant  plans,  and  withheld  the  material  needed  to  their  execution.  On  being  removed 
from  command.  McClellan  put  these  slanders  formally  on  record  in  his  so-called 
Report.  He  has  ended  by  becoming  the  leader  of  a  party  which,  going  on  the  effect 
produced  by  these  vilifications  of  the  Administration,  seeks  to  obtain  control  of  the 
destinies  of  this  nation.  I  have  attempted  to  expose  the  falsity  of  these  charges, 
rf  not  with  the  expectation  of  silencing  the  clamor  of  men  seeking  their  greatness  in 
their  country's  ruin,  at  least  with  the  hope  of  disabusing  honest  men  of  mistaken 
notions  long  assiduously  inculcated,  and  anticipating  for  the  military  conduct  of 
Mr,  Lincoln's  Administration  a  part  of  that  justice  which  history  will  accord  it. 


AN  INITIAL  PINE  OP  25  CENTS 


LD21-]OOm-7,'39(402s) 


Gaylord  Bros.,  Inc. 

Stockton,  Calif. 
T.  M.  Reg.  U.S.  Pat.  Off. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


